The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
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Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
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UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
09-06-2025
NASA's Top 5 Technical Challenges Countdown: #3: Better Computers
NASA's Top 5 Technical Challenges Countdown: #3: Better Computers
In this series we are exploring NASA's top five challenges as detailed in its Civil Space Shortfall Ranking, which is basically NASA's Christmas wish list. These are the technologies that NASA believes we need to develop if we want to go to space…and stay there.
That brings us to the number 3 highest-priority technology for long-term space activities: better computers.
Computers have been involved in spaceflight since almost the very beginning. Just like on the Earth, computers aid in a variety of tasks, like navigation and communication. But unfortunately, space is really, really unkind to electronics.
It's not so much the vacuum of space; a circuit board does just fine. And freezing cold temperatures aren't that big of an issue either. No, it's our old friends, the cosmic rays. Each cosmic ray consists of a single proton or atomic nuclei, and the most powerful ones have the energy equivalent to a thrown baseball – which doesn't sound like much, but when you cram that baseball down to the size of a subatomic particle, it can be rather nasty.
Most cosmic rays slip through tissues and computer circuitry with ease; they're so small they literally miss the atoms and molecules of larger objects. But every once in a while they can strike, delivering all their energy to whatever they encounter. In humans, this can lead to an increased risk of cancer. In computers, it can lead to fatal glitches.
In 2022 the Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched all the way back in 1977 and is currently sailing beyond the borders of our solar system, started sending back garbled transmissions. By this point, voyager had spent decades cruising the outer solar system, giving us the most pristine images of the giant planets and our first taste of interstellar space. Most of the spacecraft was operating normally, but not the attitude articulation and control system, which is responsible for keeping Voyager's radio antenna pointed back to Earth, was just creating nonsense. Engineers were able to fix the issue by uploading the equivalent of a software update to route around the malfunctioning circuitry, although they never discovered the root cause of the problem. Many suspect that a cosmic ray struck a piece of circuitry at just the wrong moment to cause the problem.
More sophisticated computers are vulnerable as well. In 2023 the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most advanced telescope ever sent into space, suffered a minor malfunction when it's Near infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph, or Niriss, an important scientific instrument used to study exoplanets, become unsynchronized with the rest of the spacecraft, rendering it useless. NASA engineers suspected a cosmic ray led to the malfunction, but thankfully they were able to restore order by, essentially, turning it off and turning it back on again.
These issues were easy to solve, but it's only a matter of time before a cosmic ray strikes at a critical moment, shutting down a much more important mission. To protect against the ever-present threat of cosmic rays, spacecraft engineers take years to develop onboard computers and ensure that they are hardened against radiation. It's for this reason that computers going into space tend to be a couple…or more…generations behind the curve.
In 1969, the Apollo 11 mission's guidance computer weighed 70 pounds and was capable of performing about 40,000 instructions per second, which is over 100,000 times slower than the smartphone you're probably using right now. The International Space Station featured several custom-build computers with took nearly a decade to develop.
If we're going to maintain a larger presence in space, this isn't going to cut it. We need advanced hardware to handle a variety of complex tasks: more sophisticated navigation and tracking, much larger data communication loads, assistance with scientific surveys and studies, and more. Plus, we need our computers to be more fault tolerant, so that a stray cosmic ray doesn't derail an entire mission, and we need to be able to easily swap out computing modules when they go space crazy on us, because we need maximum adaptability to achieve our long-term plans.
Ironically, one of our biggest challenges with sending more powerful computers into space is how to deal with the heat. Yes, away from the Sun, space is cold, just a few degrees above absolute zero. But it's also a vacuum, which means there's no air or water to easily transport away heat. It's not just you can just plop a fan on the side of the CPU. So heat can easily build up to dangerous – for delicate circuitry – levels. Plus, shielding against cosmic rays isn't as simple as putting up a wall. That's because cosmic rays can strike the molecules in the wall itself and send out a shower of still-energetic particles that can disrupt circuitry.
We'll have to come up with many clever solutions if we want our space-based computers to be as fast and reliable as our Earthbound ones.
UFO-crashes in de Verenigde Staten naast Roswell: Aurora, Aztec en Kecksburg, en ook crashes in de rest van de wereld
UFO-crashes in de Verenigde Staten naast Roswell: Aurora, Aztec en Kecksburg, en ook crashes in de rest van de wereld
Voorwoord
De vraag of buitenaards leven bestaat en of wij daadwerkelijk contact hebben gehad met niet-aardse wezens, blijft één van de meest intrigerende en controversiële onderwerpen binnen de wetenschap en populaire cultuur. Sinds het begin van de 20e eeuw hebben talloze meldingen, ooggetuigenverslagen en vermeende bewijzen de ronde gedaan over UFO-waarnemingen en -crashes. Hoewel de meeste incidenten worden toegeschreven aan natuurlijke verschijnselen, menselijke fouten of militaire testen, blijven enkele gebeurtenissen, zoals de beroemde Roswell-crash, het onderwerp van speculatie en onderzoek. Naast Roswell zijn er andere opvallende incidenten zoals Aurora, Aztec en Kecksburg, die elk hun eigen verhaal en mysterie bevatten. Daarnaast zijn er wereldwijd meerdere crash-incidenten gerapporteerd, waardoor het vraagstuk universeel lijkt en niet uitsluitend tot één regio beperkt.
In deze wetenschappelijke analyse zullen we de belangrijkste UFO-crashes naast Roswell in detail onderzoeken, inclusief de incidenten in Aurora, Aztec en Kecksburg. Daarnaast wordt een overzicht gegeven van crashincidenten elders in de wereld. We bespreken de beschrijvingen van deze crashes, de geloofwaardigheid ervan, de beschikbare bewijzen en de wetenschappelijke pogingen tot verklaring. Een kritische blik op de sceptische interpretaties en de tekortkomingen van het bewijs worden niet geschuwd, om zo een evenwichtig en volledig beeld te schetsen. Het doel is niet om onkritisch te geloven, maar om de feiten en de wetenschap achter de fenomenen te analyseren, en te kijken of er ruimte is voor een plausibele theorie of dat de meeste incidenten verklaard kunnen worden door andere oorzaken.
Historisch overzicht en datums van belangrijke UFO-crashes
De geschiedenis van UFO-crashes kent meerdere opvallende incidenten, waarvan sommige al decennia lang onderwerp van discussie en onderzoek zijn. Hieronder volgt een overzicht van de belangrijkste gebeurtenissen, gerangschikt op datum:
Deze UFO in de vorm van een eikel werd gemaakt als rekwisiet voor een tv-programma en is nu te zien in Kecksburg.
Krediet: Kecksburg Vrijwillige Brandweer
Kecksburg (1948):
Op 9 december 1948 vond in het kleine dorpje Kecksburg, Pennsylvania, een incident plaats dat sindsdien veel discussie en speculatie heeft uitgelokt. Volgens ooggetuigen en lokale bewoners zag men een helder, vuurbol-achtig object dat met grote snelheid door de lucht bewoog. Plotseling daalde het object neer in de dichtbeboste omgeving van het dorp, waar het volgens verslagen langzaam werd waargenomen voordat het uit het zicht verdween. Verschillende getuigen beschreven het object als een metalen, acorn-shaped (eikelvormig) voorwerp, dat met een knal op de grond zou zijn gevallen. Na de val werd het gebied onmiddellijk door militaire eenheden afgezet, en er werden militaire voertuigen en helikopters in de omgeving gesignaleerd, wat de indruk wekte dat de autoriteiten het incident zeer serieus namen.
Illustratie van de UFO beschreven door getuigen.
Krediet: Michael Schratt
De Amerikaanse overheid verklaarde aanvankelijk dat het om een meteoriet ging, maar veel inwoners en UFO-onderzoekers waren sceptisch over deze uitleg. Het object werd in beslag genomen door de militaire autoriteiten en naar een geheime locatie gebracht, waardoor er geruchten ontstonden over de aard van de inhoud. Sommige theorieën suggereren dat het een buitenaards vaartuig was dat crashte, terwijl anderen beweren dat het een experimenteel militair apparaat was dat geheim moest blijven voor het publiek. Het incident werd lange tijd nauwelijks besproken in de mainstream media, maar kreeg later meer aandacht van UFO-enthousiastelingen en onderzoekers, die het vergelijken met de beroemde Roswell-crash van 1947. Desalniettemin blijft de exacte aard van wat er in Kecksburg gebeurde, tot op heden een mysterie, dat vragen oproept over mogelijke buitenaardse interacties en overheidsgeheimen.
Aztec (1948-1949):
De geruchten over een mogelijke UFO-crash nabij Aztec, New Mexico, dateren uit de jaren 1990 en hebben sindsdien veel aandacht getrokken binnen de UFO-gemeenschap en bij geïnteresseerden in buitenaardse verschijnselen. Volgens verschillende theorieën en verhalen zou er in de jaren 1948-1949 een grote onbekende vliegende schijf of Ufo zijn neergestort in de buurt van Aztec, een klein stadje in het zuidwesten van de Verenigde Staten. Deze verhalen worden vaak gekoppeld aan het populaire narratief rond de Roswell-affaire, die plaatsvond in juli 1947, en suggereren dat niet alle crashsites en buitenaardse resten openbaar zijn gemaakt of bekend zijn bij het grote publiek.
De geruchten over Aztec worden ondersteund door enkele anonieme getuigen en bronnen die beweren dat er in die periode een grote, onverklaarbare crash heeft plaatsgevonden, waarbij mogelijk buitenaardse voertuigen en lichamen zijn gevonden. Sommige theorieën suggereren dat de Amerikaanse overheid de crash heeft geborgen en dat de resten geheim worden gehouden vanwege de technologische en politieke implicaties. Er wordt echter nooit concreet bewijs geleverd dat deze gebeurtenis daadwerkelijk heeft plaatsgevonden. Moderne onderzoekers en UFO-enthousiastelingen wijzen er op dat de verhalen vaak gebaseerd zijn op anekdotisch bewijs, geruchten en speculaties, zonder tastbare bewijzen.
De Amerikaanse overheid heeft nooit officiële bevestiging gegeven van een UFO-crash in Aztec, en documenten die deze gebeurtenis ondersteunen ontbreken of blijven geheim. Desalniettemin blijft het verhaal bestaan binnen de UFO-mythologie en wordt het door sommigen gezien als een mogelijke aanwijzing dat er meer is dan wat officieel wordt toegelaten. Tot op heden is er geen sluitend bewijs dat aantoont dat er daadwerkelijk een UFO is neergestort bij Aztec, maar de geruchten blijven bestaan en voeden de interesse in buitenaardse verschijnselen en overheidsgeheimen.
Roswell (1947):
Het Roswell-incident van 1947 is zonder twijfel het meest bekende en besproken UFO-incident ter wereld. Op 8 juli 1947 werd in de buurt van Roswell, New Mexico, een vreemd object ontdekt dat aanvankelijk door de lokale autoriteiten werd gerapporteerd als een “buitenaards ruimteschip.” Volgens eerste rapporten was er een grote metalen schijf gevonden, die niet leek op gewone vliegtuigen of militaire apparatuur. Het nieuws verspreidde zich snel en leidde tot veel speculaties over buitenaardse ontmoetingen en UFO’s.
Kort daarna bracht het Amerikaanse leger een officiële verklaring uit, waarin werd gesteld dat het om een "weerballon" ging, onderdeel van een geheime militaire project genaamd “Mogul.” Dit project was bedoeld om Sovjet-communistische raket- en bommenwerperactiviteiten te detecteren door middel van hoogvliegende ballonnen met speciale geluidstrackers. Het werd later duidelijk dat het leger het publiek wilde beschermen tegen paniek door het incident te minimaliseren.
In de jaren daarna ontstonden talloze complottheorieën en geruchten dat het leger een buitenaards ruimteschip had geborgen en dat er buitenaardse wezens waren gevonden. Sommige onderzoekers geloven dat het bewijs voor buitenaards leven werd verborgen door de Amerikaanse overheid om publieke angst te voorkomen en geheime technologieën te beschermen. Anderen blijven bij de officiële verklaring dat het om een experiment met weerballonnen ging.
Hoewel er geen sluitend bewijs is dat buitenaardse wezens betrokken waren, blijft het Roswell-incident een bron van fascinatie en speculatie. Het heeft een belangrijke rol gespeeld in de popcultuur en de UFO-onderzoeken, en blijft een symbool voor de voortdurende zoektocht naar buitenaards leven en de geheimen van de overheid.
Origineel krantenartikel dat het incident beschrijft, door S. E. Haydon, “A Windmill Demolishes It,” The Dallas Morning News, 19 april 1897, p. 5.
Aurora (1897):
Het incident in Aurora, Texas, dat plaatsvond tussen 1897 en 1898, wordt algemeen beschouwd als een van de eerste bekende UFO-incidenten in de Verenigde Staten. Volgens ooggetuigen zag een aantal inwoners van het kleine stadje Aurora een vreemd object dat uit de hemel leek te dalen. Dit object had een cilindrische of schijfvormige structuur en werd beschreven als een glanzend, metallic schip dat in de lucht leek te zweven voordat het neerstortte op een boerderij buiten de stad.
De bewoners waren verbijsterd door wat ze zagen en rapporteerden dat het object vlammen en rook uitstraalde voordat het in brand vloog en tot ontploffing kwam. Aanwijzingen voor het incident werden gevonden in de nasleep ervan, waaronder verbrande grond, verbrande planten en metalen resten die niet overeenkwamen met bekende technologie van die tijd. Sommige ooggetuigen verklaarden dat ze een vreemd, niet-van-de-wereldachtig wezen zagen dat uit het wrak kwam, hoewel deze beweringen niet algemeen worden bevestigd.
De lokale autoriteiten en kranten uit die tijd beschreven het voorval als een mysterieuze brand en crash. De officiële verklaring van de plaatselijke burgemeester was dat het een "vliegend schip" betrof dat door de storm was meegesleurd en neergehaald. In latere jaren werd het incident door UFO-onderzoekers geïnterpreteerd als mogelijk bewijs van buitenaardse contactpogingen of geavanceerde technologie die destijds nog onbekend was.
Hoewel er geen concreet bewijs is dat het om een buitenaards voertuig ging, blijft het Aurora-incident een fascinerend verhaal dat de verbeelding van vele UFO-enthousiastelingen en onderzoekers heeft aangezwengeld. Het wordt vaak aangehaald in discussies over vroege UFO-waarnemingen en de mogelijkheid dat buitenaardse wezens al lang onze planeet zouden bezoeken. Het incident wordt ook wel de “Roswell van de 19e eeuw” genoemd vanwege de mysterieuze aard ervan.
Naast deze incidenten zijn er wereldwijd meerdere meldingen en crash-incidenten gerapporteerd, waaronder in België, Mexico, en Rusland.
Hier zijn enkele bekende UFO-incidenten:
België (1989-1990): Tijdens deze periode werden talloze waarnemingen gemeld van ongewone vliegende objecten die door burgers en piloten werden gezien. Deze verschijnselen werden niet alleen visueel waargenomen, maar ook geregistreerd door militaire radarinstallaties. Verschillende jetjagers werden ingezet om de objecten te volgen, wat leidde tot intensieve militaire operaties. Het fenomeen staat bekend als het "Belgium Wave" en blijft een van de meest gedocumenteerde en onderzochte UFO-incidenten in Europa vanwege de combinatie van radar- en visuele waarnemingen.
Rusland (1947): Hoewel het jaar vooral bekend staat vanwege de Roswell-crash in de Verenigde Staten, heeft Rusland ook een geschiedenis van meldingen van onverklaarbare luchtverschijnselen. In dat jaar werden verschillende meldingen gedaan van vreemde objecten en lichtverschijnselen in de lucht, vaak gezien door piloten en militairen. Deze incidenten werden soms niet volledig verklaard, waardoor ze bijdroegen aan de internationale uitwisseling van UFO-gerelateerde verhalen. Rusland heeft door de jaren heen meerdere officiële en onofficiële rapporten over onverklaarbare luchtverschijnselen uitgebracht, wat wijst op een blijvende interesse in dit fenomeen.
Mexico (1991): In de stad Veracruz werden meerdere getuigen meldingen gedaan van grote, mysterieuze objecten die zich in de lucht bewogen. Verschillende inwoners en lokale autoriteiten zagen de objecten, die snel en onvoorspelbaar leken te bewegen. Sommige getuigen beschreven ze als fel verlichte, vliegende schijven of onregelmatige vormen die snel van plaats veranderden. Het incident kreeg veel media-aandacht en leidde tot verdere onderzoeken door lokale autoriteiten en UFO-onderzoeksgroepen. Het blijft een van de meest opvallende onverklaarbare luchtverschijnselen in Mexico uit die periode.
Wat betreft recente of actuele UFO-crashes, er zijn geen bevestigde of door officiële instanties bevestigde incidenten die ik kan verstrekken. Veel UFO-meldingen blijven onduidelijk en worden niet officieel erkend als buitenaardse voertuigen.
Geloofwaardigheid, bewijs en wetenschappelijk onderzoek
De geloofwaardigheid van UFO-crash-incidenten is een onderwerp dat al decennia voor opschudding zorgt, niet alleen onder onderzoekers en overheidsinstanties, maar ook binnen het algemene publiek. Verschillende incidenten worden verschillend beoordeeld op basis van de beschikbare bewijzen, getuigenverklaringen en de mate van wetenschappelijke onderbouwing.
Het meest bekende en vaak besproken geval is dat van Roswell, dat al sinds de late jaren 1940 een prominente plaats inneemt in de UFO-lore. In 1947 meldde het Amerikaanse leger dat het een "vliegend schijfje" had geborgen, maar later werd dit verhaal omgezet in een verklaring dat het om een weerballon ging. Desalniettemin blijven er talloze getuigenverklaringen, officiële documenten die later werden vrijgegeven en een breed scala aan theorieën die suggereren dat er wel degelijk sprake was van een buitenaards voertuig. De omvangrijke documentatie en de langdurige publieke interesse versterken de geloofwaardigheid van deze zaak, hoewel het officiële standpunt altijd vasthield aan een natuurlijke of militaire verklaring. Kritieken wijzen erop dat veel bewijs gebaseerd is op anonieme bronnen of niet-verifieerbare documenten, waardoor de betrouwbaarheid twijfelachtig blijft.
Andere incidenten zoals die van Kecksburg (1954) en Aztec (1948) worden vaak als minder betrouwbaar beschouwd. Kecksburg bijvoorbeeld, waarbij een brandend object in de bossen werd gevonden, wordt door officiële instanties toegeschreven aan een meteoriet of een stuk ruimtepuin. Toch blijven theorieën bestaan dat het om een geheime militaire of buitenaardse operatie ging. Het gebrek aan fysiek bewijs, de inconsistenties in getuigenverklaringen en het ontbreken van onafhankelijke verificatie zorgen ervoor dat deze gebeurtenissen minder geloofwaardig worden geacht binnen de wetenschappelijke gemeenschap.
Wetenschappelijk onderzoek naar UFO-crashes en gerelateerde incidenten is ingewikkeld. Veel overheidsinstanties zoals NASA en het Amerikaanse leger hebben nooit bevestigd dat buitenaardse voertuigen betrokken zijn bij deze incidenten. In plaats daarvan wordt vaak verklaard dat de waarnemingen kunnen worden toegeschreven aan natuurlijke verschijnselen zoals planeten, meteorieten of atmosferische anomalieën, of menselijke technologieën zoals geheime militaire tests. Psychologische factoren zoals massahysterie, hallucinaties, en de invloed van media en folklore spelen eveneens een rol in de interpretatie van getuigenverslagen.
Echter, er blijven een aantal incidenten over die niet volledig verklaard kunnen worden door de gangbare wetenschappelijke theorieën. Radarwaarnemingen die niet konden worden verklaard, fysische sporen zoals beschadigde bodem of metalen resten die niet aan bekende materialen konden worden toegeschreven, en getuigenverklaringen die consistent blijven over de jaren heen, zorgen voor een blijvend vraagteken. Sommige onderzoekers pleiten voor verder wetenschappelijk onderzoek en het openstellen van meer bewijsmateriaal om de ware aard van deze onverklaarde fenomenen te achterhalen.
Kortom, hoewel veel UFO-incidenten hun verklaarbaarheid vinden in natuurlijke of menselijke oorzaken, blijven enkele gevallen buiten het bereik van de huidige wetenschappelijke kennis. De combinatie van getuigenissen, fysiek bewijs en de complexiteit van interpretatie maken het een fascinerend, maar ook controversieel onderzoeksgebied. Het is belangrijk dat verder onderzoek gebaseerd is op wetenschappelijke methoden en dat bewijzen systematisch worden verzameld en geverifieerd om de geloofwaardigheid en de waarheid achter deze mysterieuze gebeurtenissen te achterhalen.
Sceptische visie en kritische analyse
De sceptische benadering van UFO-incidenten is gebaseerd op een grondige en kritische evaluatie van de beschikbare bewijzen en verklaringen. Sceptici benadrukken dat veel waarnemingen en vermeende ontmoetingen met onbekende vliegende objecten kunnen worden verklaard door natuurlijke fenomenen, menselijke fouten, of zelfs bedrog. Ze wijzen bijvoorbeeld op de rol van atmosferische verschijnselen zoals ballonnen, weerballonnen, onweersbollen, lenticulair wolken en meteorieten die vaak worden geïnterpreteerd als buitenaardse voertuigen. Daarnaast kunnen optische illusies, zoals glinsteringen of lichteffecten, en technische fouten in waarnemingen of registratieapparatuur eveneens leiden tot onjuiste conclusies.
Een belangrijk punt in hun kritiek is dat veel zogenaamde bewijzen voor buitenaardse aanwezigheid gebaseerd zijn op anonieme bronnen, getuigenverklaringen zonder verificatie, of foto's en video's die niet reproduceerbaar of te verifiëren zijn. Vaak blijken deze bewijsstukken te zijn ontstaan uit overdrijvingen, verkeerde interpretaties of zelfs bewust bedrog. Voorbeelden hiervan zijn valse documenten, gefotoshopte beelden of misleidende foto's die jarenlang als authentiek werden beschouwd, maar later werden ontmaskerd.
Verder onderstrepen sceptici dat de media en publieke angst een grote rol spelen in het ontstaan en verspreiden van legendes en mythen rondom UFO's. Sensatiezucht en het verlangen naar spectaculair nieuws zorgen ervoor dat eventuele incidenten worden opgeblazen en dat de verhalen worden aangevuld met verzinsels en geruchten. Dit leidt tot een versterking van de overtuiging dat er sprake zou zijn van buitenaardse contacten, terwijl er geen solide bewijs is dat deze overtuigingen ondersteunen.
Daarnaast wordt het ontbreken van verificateerbare en reproduceerbare bewijzen als een fundamenteel probleem gezien. Wetenschappelijke methoden vereisen dat waarnemingen kunnen worden nagebootst en getest door onafhankelijke onderzoekers, maar bij UFO-gevallen ontbreekt vaak deze reproduceerbaarheid. Veel van de claims blijven op anekdotisch bewijs gebaseerd, dat niet kan worden bevestigd of gecontroleerd door derden.
Tot slot benadrukken sceptici dat de meeste UFO-incidenten uiteindelijk kunnen worden verklaard door menselijke perceptie, psychologische factoren zoals pareidolie (het zien van patronen in willekeurige prikkels), massahypnose en de menselijke neiging om te zoeken naar betekenis of patronen in onduidelijke waarnemingen. Hierdoor ontstaat een soort zelfversterkend patroon van interpretaties, dat niet op feitelijke bewijzen is gebaseerd.
Kortom, de sceptische visie benadrukt dat er tot op heden geen overtuigend en onweerlegbaar bewijs bestaat dat wijst op buitenaardse aanwezigheid. Veel waarnemingen en verhalen kunnen worden verklaard door natuurlijke verschijnselen, menselijke fouten, interpretatiefouten en bedrog. Het ontbreken van reproduceerbare en verifieerbare bewijzen ondermijnt de geloofwaardigheid van de meeste claims en wijst erop dat de UFO-zaak nog steeds niet wetenschappelijk bewezen is. Hierdoor blijven veel incidenten in het domein van speculatie en mythevorming, in plaats van objectieve wetenschap.
Conclusie
De analyse van UFO-crashes, met name die rondom Roswell en de gerelateerde incidenten in Aurora, Aztec en Kecksburg, benadrukt de complexiteit en het intrigerende karakter van deze gebeurtenissen. Hoewel ze vaak worden aangehaald als mogelijk bewijs voor buitenaardse aanwezigheid, blijft het bewijs op dit moment ontoereikend om definitief conclusies te trekken. Veel van de beschikbare rapporten, getuigenverklaringen en documenten zijn anoniem, incompleet of niet verifieerbaar, waardoor er een grote mate van onzekerheid en scepsis bestaat binnen de wetenschappelijke wereld.
De gebeurtenis bij Roswell in 1947 is waarschijnlijk de meest bekende UFO-crash in de geschiedenis. Aanvankelijk werd er gemeld dat een "vliegend schijfje" was gevonden, maar de Amerikaanse overheid verklaarde later dat het ging om een weerballon van het Project Mogul, bedoeld om Sovjet-Amerikaanse kernproeven te detecteren. Desalniettemin hield het verhaal stand dat er mogelijk een buitenaards voertuig was gevonden, en dit heeft geleid tot talloze geruchten, complottheorieën en een uitgebreide mythology rondom UFO’s. De documenten die later vrijgegeven werden, bevatten vaak onduidelijke of gecensureerde informatie, wat de twijfel en speculatie alleen maar versterkt.
In Aurora, Texas (1897), werd melding gemaakt van een "vallende vliegende schijf" en een lijk dat werd gevonden in de buurt van een kerktoren. Hoewel dit incident mogelijk op natuurlijke of menselijke oorzaken kan worden teruggevoerd, blijft het door de beperkte documentatie en het gebrek aan fysiek bewijs een bron van speculatie en interesse. Hetzelfde geldt voor het incident in Aztec (1948), waar getuigen rapporteren over een crash en de vondst van vreemde lichamen, maar zonder concreet bewijs dat het om buitenaardse technologie ging.
Het Kecksburg-incident uit 1965 is een ander bekend voorbeeld. Een object dat werd waargenomen en uiteindelijk in een bos werd gevonden, werd door de autoriteiten snel verwijderd en werd door sommigen geïdentificeerd als een meteoriet. Anderen geloven dat het een buitenaards voertuig was dat onder de radar werd gehouden. Ondanks verschillende verklaringen ontbreekt er overtuigend bewijs dat definitief aantoont dat het hier om een buitenaards object ging.
Toekomstperspectief
De toekomst van onderzoek naar UFO-crashes ligt in het verder verbeteren van de wetenschappelijke methodologie, het vergroten van transparantie en het verzamelen van meer fysiek bewijs. Moderne technologieën zoals geavanceerde radar-, satelliet- en sensorinstrumenten kunnen helpen om gebeurtenissen nauwkeuriger vast te leggen en te analyseren. Daarnaast is er een groeiende openheid en interesse van overheden en wetenschappelijke instituten, zoals de recentelijk opgerichte UAP-taskforces in de Verenigde Staten, die zich richten op het onderzoeken van onverklaarbare luchtverschijnselen.
Het is belangrijk dat onderzoeksinitiatieven interdisciplinair en kritisch blijven, en dat ze niet alleen gefocust zijn op het bevestigen van buitenaardse betrokkenheid, maar ook op het uitsluiten van natuurlijke of menselijke verklaringen. Het verzamelen van fysiek bewijs, zoals crash-onderdelen, en het documenteren van getuigenverklaringen onder strikte protocollen kunnen bijdragen aan een meer solide wetenschappelijke basis.
Hoewel het nog steeds onduidelijk is of UFO-crashes daadwerkelijk buitenaardse technologie betreffen, biedt de voortdurende technologische vooruitgang en de toenemende transparantie hoop op het verkrijgen van meer duidelijkheid in de toekomst. Wetenschap blijft openstaan voor nieuwe bewijzen en inzichten, en het is essentieel dat onderzoek naar deze mysterieuze gebeurtenissen op een objectieve en kritische wijze wordt voortgezet. Alleen door zorgvuldig en transparant onderzoek kunnen we wellicht op termijn antwoorden vinden die nu nog buiten ons bereik liggen.
It was 1993 when I was first contacted by London businessman Ray Santilli. It was l995 when Santilli’s controversial ‘Alien Autopsy Film’ was released around the world. I have covered events surrounding this film in many publications around the world and in my new book ‘ROSWELL ALIEN AUTOPSY – The Truth Behind the Film That Shocked the World’ so forgive me if I don’t cover old ground here. All the relevant details of my previous research can be located on my website at: www.beyondroswell.com.
On June 22nd 2007, I travelled by train to London to meet up with Ray Santilli and his business partner Gary Shoefield. We had a pleasant lunch together and Ray Santilli showed me some frames of film encased in a type of perspex material. Santilli claimed these were original vintage 1947 frames of film from the alien autopsy. As they came with no official seal of approval or had been authenticated by anyone they were useless.
From left: Shoefield, Philip Mantle (Author), Ray Santilli
Within a couple of days of this meeting my friend and colleague Russel Callaghan, editor of UFO DATA magazine, had a phone call from a man by the name of Spyros Melaris. This man claimed he had lead the team that faked the whole alien autopsy film. He was a magician and filmmaker and he was now ready to spill the beans. He gave Russel a run down of the who, what, why and where of the whole affair. Because of my involvement in this affair Russel was soon on the phone to me with the details. It wasn’t long before I spoke to Spyros Melaris myself and he was telling me things in great detail. During the next few weeks I had several telephone conversations with Spyros Melaris and also put him in contact with US TV producer Robert (Bob) Kiviat at his request. Spyros was considering the best way to go public with his story, he had a book planned and thought that a TV documentary might also be a good idea.
Along with my colleagues Russel Callaghan, Michael Buckley and Steve Johnston, I was one of the co-organisers of the UFO DATA annual conference. It just so happened, that the 2007 conference had a loose Roswell theme to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Roswell Incident. My colleagues and I discussed the possibility of asking Spyros Melaris to make his first public statement on this whole thing at our conference and eventually he agreed. The conference itself was held over the weekend of October 20th & 21st 2007 in Pontefract, West Yorkshire. A packed audience saw Spyros take the stage on Sunday October 21st. I had met him in person for the first time the night before at the hotel and I made loose arrangements to formally interview him at his home later in the year. As promised, Spyros took to the stage and told of his involvement in the making of the alien autopsy film. A small few members of the audience were rather upset to hear this but the vast majority were fascinated by what he had to say.
Spyros Melaris speaking at the UFO DATA conference in 2007. (Credit: Philip Mantle)
I made arrangements to visit the home of Spyros Melaris on November 16th 2007 and I drove to his house in Hertfordshire with my partner Christine. Before the formal audio-taped interview began we had lunch with Spyros and his lovely wife Anne. Over lunch Spyros showed us some of the documentary evidence he has to support his claims. This included his diary from l995, hand drawn sketches of the alien, a full list of hand painted story board images of the whole alien autopsy film, original fax messages from Kodak in the USA providing copies of l947 fill canister labels, and a large portfolio of research material. This was mainly of vintage (l940’s) US military vehicles and some vintage US military medical photographs. The interview itself lasted around two hours and we only touched the tip of the iceberg. The full interview can be located online at: http://www.outtahear.com/beyond_updates/index.html (Alien Autopsy Information section). I would like to thank my colleague Steve Johnston for transcribing this interview in full. The following is based on that interview.
Spyros Melaris (right) with Philip Mantle in 2007. (Credit: Philip Mantle)
Who is Spyros Melaris?
As the name might give it away Spyros was originally born in Cyprus. As a boy he was taught a magic trick by his grandfather and his love of magic was born. The other passion as a boy growing up in the UK was film making. At school he told his careers officer that he wanted to be an actor but this was discouraged. A proper job was what he should have. So a proper job he took and after leaving school became an apprentice trained motor mechanic. However, his love of magic and film making eventually won over and he eventually became a magician and a filmmaker. He now owns his own TV studio in London and makes TV shows for all the major networks in the UK and independent production companies alike. In short, in his owns words, we make programmes for “anyone who books us.”
How He Met Ray Santilli
In January 1995 he was to attend the MIDEM music industry event in Cannes, France. He was taking a film crew there and had some spare time on his hands so he sent fax messages to 4 production companies picked at random from a media directory. He basically asked them if they wanted to hire him and his crew while in Cannes. One of these happened to be the Merlin Group owned by Ray Santilli. Spyros and Ray Santilli had a few telephone conversations but did not meet and arranged to meet in Cannes. By pure chance they bumped into each other at a restaurant in Cannes and it was here that Ray Santilli fist told Spyros Melaris that he had obtained film footage of an alien. Holding back a smirk Spyros asked Santilli if he was serious and he replied he was, not only that, he wanted Spyros to make a documentary from this footage. They eventually agreed to meet at Ray Santilli’s office back in London. A few days later Spyros kept his appointment with Santilli at his office in London. Here he met an almost distraught Ray Santilli who told him he’d bought this film but it had turned out to be very poor quality. Spyros was shown what has become known as the ‘tent footage’ and he immediately recognised it as been shot on video. The tape he was shown was on VHS format. Santilli seemed surprised that he had recognised it as being shot on video so quickly and he realised the game was up. Again in Spyros’s own words “If I can’t get it past this guy, I’m not going to get it past anyone else. He realised it was game up. That’s when the meeting ended. I thought the guy’s mad. He’s trying a fast one. I thought it was over at that point.”
So How Did The Idea of a Fake Film Come About?
Melaris met up with his friend and colleague John Humphreys. Humphreys is a Royal Academy trained sculptor whose work had sometimes overlapped into film and TV special effects. Melaris and Humphreys had known each other for a long time and had worked on a number of things together in the past. Melaris simply put the idea to Humphreys, “John, do you fancy sculpting an alien?” Melaris told Humphreys of his meeting with Santilli and basically came up with the idea of making it. They talked things over from a legal point of view and how it might help them break into other projects, even Hollywood. The idea was to make it, release it to the world, and then make a second programme shortly after showing how they did it. Humphreys agreed and Melaris pitched the idea to Santilli. Santilli looked like a man reborn and agreed. The budget put forward by Melaris was about £30,000 and it was Santilli’s business partner and friend Volker Spielberg who put up the money. The funding was in place, contracts and a confidentiality agreement were signed and the ball was rolling.
The Team Behind The Making of The Film
First off there was Spyros Melaris. He designed and directed the film, instructed and paid the rest of the team, made the autopsy table along with many of the other props, he also made the ‘contamination suits’ as well as obtain the props and cameras. The main researcher behind it all was Spyros’s then girlfriend Geraldine. She was the one who checked the medical books, spoke with surgeons and pathologists and she even played the part of the nurse in the film. Geraldine is not her real name as she wishes to remain anonymous. John Humphreys of course made the alien’s bodies. The mould was actually made from John’s ten year-old son who was quite tall. As a trained sculptor Humphreys had also studied anatomy so he was the man who played the surgeon in the film. Another friend of Spyros’s was Greg Simmons. He was seen occasionally in the film in one of the contamination suits and he also played the part of the soldier in the Debris Footage. Gareth Watson, a colleague of Santilli’s and Shoefield’s was the man in the surgical mask behind the glass, and finally Spyros’s brother Peter helped behind the scenes. The set was built in Geraldine’s house in Camden in London. The property was in the process of being converted into three flats (apartments) at the time and was therefore empty. The props were obtained from someone Spyros knew in the USA. She was not told what they were for and were all ordered separately and delivered to different addresses so as not to arouse suspicion. The camera’s were obtained by Spyros; one bought and one borrowed from a friend.
Original pencil sketch of a design for the alien creature by Spyros Melaris. (Credit: Spyros Melaris)Original pencil sketch of a design for the alien creature by Spyros Melaris. (Credit:Spyros Melaris)
Why There Are Two Separate Autopsy Films
According to Spyros the first ‘Alien Autopsy’ film went pretty much as planned. However, upon completion Geraldine noticed that a few of the medical procedures were not correct. They therefore had to make another creature and film another one. Apparently Santilli was ready for packing it all in at this point as there was no more money in the budget to film it again. They persevered and made another one at Spyros’s cost the very next day. This too was not without problems. The foam latex used to fill the dummy had not worked right and an air bubble had left a hollow space in the creature’s leg. Humphreys was despatched to the local butchers by Spyros to get a leg joint of a sheep. This was inserted into the hollow part in the alien’s right leg, a few other things were added, the outside of the leg was gently burnt with a blowtorch and hey presto, the leg wound. Some of the inner organs were manufactured by Melaris, and animal organs were also used for the alien’s innards, although altered with a scalpel and coated with latex. The alien’s brain was actually made from three sheep’s brains and part of a pig’s brain cast in gelatine. This is how there came to be two separate autopsy films one of which was shown in its entirety, while the second one made, has only ever been released in part.
The Wreckage and I-beams
These were all designed by Spyros himself. At the October 2007 UFO DATA conference Spyros showed me how he had designed the ‘writing’ on them and what it said. The wreckage was then manufactured by John Humphreys, Spyros and his brother Peter. He told me that he based it on Greek lettering, a bit of ancient Egyptian stylising and some artistic license. On the main large beams, if translated correctly, reads ‘FREEDOM’. Spyros thought this a fitting name for an alien spacecraft. While designing the letters which spell the word ‘FREEDOM’, Spyros noticed that if the word is turned upside down, the word ‘VIDEO’ could be seen. He adjusted some of the letters to better facilitate this, so the piece would throw a little red herring into the mix. The translation of the smaller beam is being held back for Spyros’s book.
Spyros Melaris shows two of the many paintings he did for the original ‘story board’ for the alien autopsy film. (Credit: Philip Mantle)
The Cameraman’s Home Video Interview
According to Melaris, Ray Santilli was put under a lot of pressure by various parties to arrange an interview with the fictitious cameraman he allegedly bought the film from. Of course, according to Melaris, there was no such person, so he came up with the idea of creating this aspect of the whole affair as well. The basic scenario is that Melaris flew to Los Angeles and met up with Santilli’s partner Gary Shoefield. Melaris wanted to find an eighty year old tramp on the streets of L.A., pay him a few hundred dollars, put him in front of a camera and ask him to read from a script. Santilli and Shoefield were nervous, and not sure this would work but Spyros was confident he could pull this off, and went ahead. He found an old guy living rough on the street, offered him $500 and a night in the hotel and he duly agreed. Again, by pure chance the chap had been an actor many years ago. Melaris took his name and the name of a movie he had appeared in. These details will be released in his book. He cleaned him up, gave him a shave, and added a bit of make up and a false prosthetic nose and chin and the job was done. The man himself did not know what he was reading or where it was going to be used. There was little chance that he would see the broadcast either. No one would recognise him in a thousand years. And they never did. This film was delivered in person in New York to US TV producer Bob Kiviat by Gary Shoefield and a man claiming to be the cameraman’s son. Eventually the film in question was broadcast on TV in Japan only and from there it was copied and distributed to UFO researchers around the world. The trick worked, no one has identified the man in question, and Melaris claims he is the only one who can do this.
The Crash Site
There are a number of people who believe the alien autopsy film is authentic, not because of the film itself but because of the crash site. Ray Santilli released details, supposedly from his cameraman, as to where the incident took place in the desert. How did this come about? Well, according to Spyros this was quite simple. In l995, he flew to Roswell. Here he interviewed many local people including Loretta Proctor. Mrs. Proctor was the neighbour of rancher Mac Brazel and it was she who suggested that Mac take some of the UFO debris into town after he found it. Spyros also met and hired private pilot Rodney Corn. He asked corn to fly him over the UFO crash site, to which he replied “which one.” There are in fact at least three such sites. So, Spyros flew over all three of them, filming as he went. Rodney Corn was able to show Spyros a great deal from the air, far better than would have been possible on foot. This included small dirt roads and long forgotten landmarks. Before the interview took place Spyros also informed me that he obtained both old and new maps of the area. All of this information was handed to Ray Santilli and it was Santilli, not Spyros, who then put it all together to make a location for a nonexistent crash site.
Field where the “real” Roswell debris is said to have been found. (Credit: OpenMinds.tv)
The Grand Plan
I asked Spyros what was the grand plan. The research was done, the film was made, so what next. Apparently it was a rather simple plan. To release the film to a broadcaster, ask them to investigate and see what happens. They were confident that it would not be exposed as a fake. Then, after a few months the plan was to hold their hands up and tell all. The reason this didn’t happen was money. Spyros had signed a confidentiality agreement with Ray Santilli and Santilli was still adamant that he needed to recoup his initial investment allegedly paid for the tent footage. Santilli told Melaris that he had invested a lot of money on this film and he must recoup that before they were to go public. Santilli reminded Spyros that he was bound by the confidentiality agreement and he was not to say or do anything until Santilli said so. Apart from a cheque for about £10,000, which Spyros split with his team, no royalties were ever paid. Santilli told him that due to the fact that he had stated publicly that it was a military film, that it had simply been copied by third parties without permission and used without payment as the people who were using the film believed that the copyright was vested with the US Military and not with Santilli. Eventually time went on and Spyros just got on with life. He was constantly working on other projects with Santilli and earning a living and the alien autopsy film was all but forgotten.
Going Public
Alien Autopsy movie poster. (Credit: Warner Bros.)
The one thing that I first asked Spyros was why was it that he had decided to go public with this information now. It was twelve years since the alien autopsy film hit the headlines. Melaris stuck to his confidentiality agreement. From a legal point of view if he broke it he could have been sued. However, in 2005 he was approached by Santilli and Shoefield to be involved in the movie version of this whole affair. He asked both if they would now tell the true story and reveal that it was all a fake but they said no, they were going to maintain that they really did have original film. Again, Santilli and Shoefield stated that there was no money in it and that they were doing it for “a bit of fun” when pressed they admitted that both Santilli and Shoefield would get paid a percentage of the profits, there was no such offer for Melaris. Melaris declined their offer. He left that meeting under the impression that the movie was not going to be made. However, the movie was made and distributed by Warner Bros and so Melaris felt that he was now able to speak as the story was now in the public domain.
The Doubters
To round off the interview I asked Spyros Melaris what he had to say to the doubters out there, those that believe the alien autopsy film is the genuine article. I’m not going to paraphrase this; instead I will use his words in full:
PM: Time’s against us, Spyros. I’ll ask one last question. There are those out there who believe in this film and Santilli 100% and they think that you’re some kind of pathological liar, playing devil’s advocate here, so please don’t be offended.
SM: No. Go ahead.
PM: What would you say if you could say one thing to the doubters out there? Is there any one thing that you can say that would say to them Spyros Melaris is who he says he is and has made this film?
SM: I don’t think that there’s any doubt that somebody made it today. That’s fair to say that somebody made the film and even Santilli said it’s a fake, but it was made from original film. I think that’s really the question. The question isn’t whether I made it because I can prove I made it. John Humphries will tell you I made it. Ray would probably tell you I made it! He couldn’t deny it. There’s too much evidence. The question is did I make it from original film? And the simple answer to that is no. There was never any original film other than the tent footage. I’ve never seen any other film. Ray maintains that he’s got original film. My question to Ray is how would that film marry with what I made? It can’t. I haven’t actually seen the film. Now you may say, “Maybe you’re lying and you did see the film and you made it.”
The story’s a bigger story if there was a real film. There would be more money in it. There wouldn’t be a reason for me and Ray to be parted. Why would we fall out? The common sense has got to come into the argument. I’m part of something as big as real film of a real alien. Why would I jeopardise being part of that and go off on my own? There’s no reason to. That’s the first thing.
The second thing. I promise you, something happened in Roswell. I’m not an easy person… I’m a sceptic. I’m not an easy person to convince. Thirty people that I talked to out there, clever people, doctors, lecturers, all sorts of people tell me they saw something. And I believe them. Something happened. A lot of ordinary people. Something happened. So, I don’t think there’s dispute about whether or not something happened in Roswell or other sightings or whether or not everything’s fake. No, I don’t think everything’s fake. I do know this is. I also know that if Ray had original film, he’d be jumping through hoops to let you test it. I’m sorry, but that’s what you would do. You would say, “Give me billions of pounds for this.” That’s what you would say. You would say, “I’ve got nothing to worry about. The cameraman doesn’t want to speak, but look at the film.” That’s what you’d do! That’s what you would do.
PM: Say no more.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
Once again I would like to reiterate that this is only part of what Spyros Melaris had to tell me. The full-unedited interview can be found in the alien autopsy section of our web site at:
So how do we check that what Spyros Melaris is telling us is correct? It is no easy task I can assure you. The documentary material shown to me by Spyros is intriguing but not proof positive. My colleague Mark Center in the USA checked the private pilot Rodney Corn for me and he does exist. Mark spoke to him on the phone but he has no recollection of being hired by Spyros Melaris. This could be because he was hired by Geraldine, and we are talking about an event which happened over 12 years ago.
At the UFO DATA conference in October 2007 was German researcher Michael Hesemann. Michael was also one of the speakers that weekend. Michael investigated the alien autopsy film from l995 through to l997 and believes it to be authentic. After the conference when Michael was back home in Germany he sent me an email that quite frankly left me stunned. He admitted for the first time that in l996 someone sent Michael an email telling him that Spyros Melaris was the hoaxer. Hesemann had never shared this information with anyone. I asked him what he did with it and he simply told me that he phoned Ray Santilli and asked him if he knew this man to which Santilli replied he did not. Michael told me he left it at that.
However, Spyros Melaris independently informed me that in l996 he had received a phone call from someone with a German accent asking him if he was the hoaxer and he of course denied it. He did not know who the caller was until he met Hesemann at our conference. I pressed Michael about this and eventually he admitted he did phone Spyros back in l996. Why Michael Hesemann never shared this information with anyone else is beyond me. In his defence, Michael has stated that there were others mentioned at the time and he did not want to spread false rumours, but these others names were circulated and eliminated. I have to be honest and say here and now that I cannot understand why Hesemann sat on this information and never told anyone. I leave it to you to make up your own mind.
A colleague of mine who is a veteran TV and movie special effects artist also took a look at the interview with Spyros. In his considered opinion the techniques and materials used by Melaris and his team to make the fake alien creature are 100% correct. There is no question in his mind that the dummies were made in the way described. He does have a few questions he’d like to ask, but these are purely little points of clarification and there is nothing wrong with what Melaris has had to say.
The other main person involved in all of this is of course US TV producer Bob Kiviat. Several years back my colleague Tim Mathews and I were tipped off about John Humphreys, Humphreys was part of the team and he made the dummies. Bob tried for years to get Humphreys on camera and make a TV documentary but all to no avail. Eventually, Bob did make a TV show for Channel 5 but without Humphreys in it. This was never broadcast. Both Humphreys and Melaris have spoken at length to Bob Kiviat about their involvement in this whole affair so I took the opportunity to ask Bob a few questions on December 4th 2007. This mini question and answer session is reproduced here in full:
Q: How many times did you speak with UK sculptor John Humphreys?
A: Once before the Ant & Dec movie came out. In approximately 2003. Once after that.
Q: Did Humphreys tell you on what he based the design for his alien creatures?
A: Yes, just on his own research, books and such. No other help.
Q: Did Humphreys ever see any original film, stills or otherwise?
A: No, never. He claimed it all came from his creative efforts and book research.
Q: During your conversations with Humphreys did he ever mention the name Spyros Melaris?
A: Yes. He said Spyros was the one who hired him for Santilli, who he met perhaps twice and came to the set once. All the money came through Spyros. Also, Spyros was the cameraman.
Q: Did Humphreys provide the names of anyone else involved. If yes what are those names?
A: No other names.
Q: Why was Humphreys looking to work with you on a documentary?
A: Yes, Humphreys wanted me to get him a network TV show based on his revelations that he made the autopsy footage, with Spyros acting as money man and cameraman, who he believed was working for Santilli.
Q: Was Humphreys going to tell all and sink the stories put out by Ray Santilli?
A: Yes, but until I got a commitment from a TV network and guaranteed money for his exclusive he kept much close to his chest.
Q: Did you speak to Humphreys agent/advisor?
A: Yes, his business manager was my main contact for all of 2003 and 2004, and it was he who informed me John was going to do the Ant & Dec movie, without giving me the details. There would also be a companion documentary “that would be my worst nightmare,” he said.
Q: If you did, what did he tell you about Humphreys involvement and reasons for wanting to spill the beans?
A: Instead of Humphreys spilling the beans to me, his manager clearly implied John had lost patience and saw a payday elsewhere – the movie, etc.
Q: You made a TV documentary for Channel 5 in 2006 in which I appeared, could you tell us why it was never broadcast?
Channel 5 was rushing instructions to my productions offices in L.A. from England telling me how the show needed to be styled, and they also wanted to move the airdate up to an almost impossible deadline. We were working around the clock already to appease the Channel 5 executive in charge when one of the top people at 5 actually listed the show in a TV guide of some sort. That’s when Gary Shoefield contacted 5 and falsely claimed Ray Santilli was involved in the ownership of my original Fox show, which the new 5 show was jumping off from. It was an outright fabrication, for my company has the only US copyright to the show AND THE ALIEN AUTOPSY FOOTAGE ITSELF!
While we were sorting through this false claim, we interviewed you. When the 5 executives saw you naming Humphreys as the guy who made the dummy and who was the key pro behind the footage, they wanted confirmation so they ILLEGALLY contacted Humphreys through a consulting producer. Humphreys freaked out, told them he wanted nothing to do with the 5 show and said he had to contact Warner Bros. Ultimately 5 reneged on their agreement with my distributor, my distributor did not fight for the airing, and this is how things were left. I’m still debating what course of action I can take to recover my substantial losses and damage!
Q: You have spoken on the telephone at length with Spyros Melaris. Are you convinced he is telling the truth?
A: For the most part, I can’t find any outlandish things that make his story unbelievable. But I do wonder how he could have been so naïve about the amount of money Santilli was making around the world. This part seems odd, as if he was playing dumb. On the contrary, he seems very bright. And if Ray gave him just enough work to keep him quiet afterward, I still wonder why he let all the other money go into Ray’s pocket without him demanding his share. This doesn’t add up, literally, pound for pound.
Q: You have been involved with the Alien Autopsy film since 1995, you have interviewed or spoken to most if not all the main players in it all, so what now is your conclusion?
A: I’m going to need more time to answer that question. Spryros’ actions or non actions in court will have a lot to do with this, and I’m looking into another intriguing angle that could impact my conclusions.
Robert Kiviat. End of interview.
It is clear from this brief interview with Bob Kiviat that there are slight differences between what John Humphreys says about his role in the faking of the film and what Melaris says. However, Humphreys does state quite clearly that it was Spyros Melaris who was the money man, it was Melaris who hired him on behalf of Santilli. Humphreys also confirms without any doubt that there never was any original film. It was a complete and utter fabrication.
I could go on but I think I’ve made my point. In l996, Spyros Melaris was outlined as the hoaxer to German researcher Michael Hesemann. In 2003, US TV producer Bob Kiviat spoke with UK sculptor John Humphreys who confirmed that Spyros was the man in charge and that there was no original film. In 2007, Spyros Melaris goes on the record for the first time and tells how it was all made. Well, perhaps not all. Spyros is holding back certain things for his book, which was supposed to be available in early 2008. And as for Ray Santilli, well he’s pretty quiet at the moment but I doubt if he will ever own up as he is quite simply in it too deep.
The long awaited book by Spyros Melaris ‘ALIEN AUTOPSY: The Myth Exposed’ comes with an accompanying DVD. It was originally scheduled to be released in 2008, but for a variety of reason it has been delayed with no firm date yet for its release.
ROSWELL ALIEN AUTOPSY – The Truth Behind the Film That Shocked the World is published by RoswellBooks.com where it can be purchased, and is avail via Amazon.com.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Alien Craft flips Over New Jersey Skyscrapers! Baffling Gray Disk, alien tech 👽🔍 UFO UAP Drone sighting news
Alien Craft flips Over New Jersey Skyscrapers! Baffling Gray Disk, alien tech 👽🔍 UFO UAP Drone sighting news
Date of sighting: June 1, 2025
Location of sighting: Jersey City, New Jersey, USA
Source: NUFORC
This UFO video is just melting my brain. This craft looks to have huge metallic tubular structures going through the disk and its flipping through the sky as if it's an unmanned alien probe. This is 100% proof that alien probes are scanning our cities, military bases and even our homes!
Scott C. Waring - UFO Sightings Daily
Eyewitness states:
Sighting from apartment building roof. I saw an object enter the frame. It appeared to be changing shape or exhibiting some form of movement. Then the object continued to slowly ascend, while also remaining in place against the wind. Location details: Latitude: 40.71521, Longitude: -74.0475
Is there an inter-dimensional B2 Stealth USAF bomber on Google Earth map, UFO UAP sighting news 👽👽👽
Is there an inter-dimensional B2 Stealth USAF bomber on Google Earth map, UFO UAP sighting news 👽👽👽
Google coordinates: Nah...just watch the video to find it.
There is a stealth B2 bomber on google map over some fields and I really think this thing might have alien tech built into it because it looks like it's shifting out of our dimension. Like the plane itself is physically slicing into several other planes...each a different color.
To find this, follow the video and go to Google Earth history button, hit 2016 and there it is.
Zwarte Driehoek UFO's, Topgeheime Technologie of Bewijs van Aliënbezoeken?
Een illustratie van een zwart driehoek UFO met lichten.
Depositphotos.
Zwarte Driehoek UFO's, Topgeheime Technologie of Bewijs van Aliënbezoeken?
Inleiding
De laatste decennia is er een groeiende interesse in zogenaamde "Black Triangle UFO’s", mysterieuze driehoekige vliegende objecten die regelmatig worden gemeld. Deze waarnemingen worden gekenmerkt door hun grote afmetingen, driehoekige vorm en vaak stil of traag bewegend gedrag. Ze worden wereldwijd gerapporteerd, vooral in Noord-Amerika, Europa en Rusland. Hoewel sommige waarnemingen mogelijk kunnen worden verklaard door militaire technologie, blijven veel gevallen onverklaard, wat de nieuwsgierigheid en speculaties aanwakkert over buitenaardse betrokkenheid.
De geschiedenis van deze fenomenen gaat terug tot de jaren 1980, met prominente incidenten zoals de "Belgische mysterieuze driehoeken" in de jaren 1990, waarbij honderden getuigen de objecten zagen. Verschillende theorieën zijn geopperd: van geheime militaire experimenten en stealth-technologie tot buitenaardse voertuigen. Sommige onderzoekers suggereren dat deze objecten mogelijk geavanceerde, niet-openbare technologieën vertegenwoordigen die door overheden worden getest, terwijl anderen geloven dat ze bewijs zijn van buitenaardse bezoeken.
Wetenschappelijk standpunt blijft voorlopig terughoudend. Er worden uitgebreide onderzoeken gedaan, maar concluderen dat er geen definitief bewijs is voor buitenaardse oorsprong. Desalniettemin blijven de Black Triangle UFO’s een intrigerend fenomeen dat vragen oproept over technologische vooruitgang en de mogelijkheid van andere levensvormen in het universum. Het onderwerp blijft een boeiend gebied voor zowel wetenschappers als enthousiaste waarnemers.
Definitie en Kenmerken van Black Triangle UFOs
Black Triangle UFOs worden gekenmerkt door hun opvallende driedimensionale driehoeksvorm, meestal zwart of donker van kleur. Ze worden vaak op lage hoogten gezien en vertonen een indrukwekkende combinatie van stilstand en beweging. Een kenmerkend aspect is dat ze vaak stil of met een geruisloos geluid worden waargenomen, hoewel sommige meldingen wijzen op lage, mechanische geluiden. Onder de onderkant van deze objecten worden vaak felle lichten waargenomen, die soms verschillende kleuren kunnen vertonen of in bepaalde patronen knipperen.
Een ander opvallend kenmerk van Black Triangle UFOs is hun complexe en onvoorspelbare beweging. Ze kunnen stil hangen, scherpe bochten maken, plotseling versnellen of traag bewegen, en lijken soms ongebruikelijke wervelingen of rotaties te vertonen. Dit geeft de indruk dat ze over geavanceerde technologie beschikken die ons nog onbekend is. Vaak worden ze waargenomen in gebieden met weinig lichtvervuiling, en de meldingen worden meestal gedaan door waarnemers die de objecten op korte afstand zien, waardoor de details beter zichtbaar zijn.
De meeste incidenten met Black Triangle UFOs dateren uit de late jaren 1980 en de jaren 1990. Vooral tussen 1989 en 1995 werden er talrijke meldingen gedaan, vooral in Noord-Amerika en Europa. Sommige van deze waarnemingen werden zelfs bevestigd door radar en andere meetinstrumenten, wat de mysterieuze aard van deze fenomenen versterkt. Ondanks talloze getuigenverklaringen en officiële rapporten blijft de herkomst en de technologie achter deze objecten onduidelijk, wat bijdraagt aan de speculaties over buitenaardse of geheime militaire oorsprong.
Kortom, Black Triangle UFOs vormen een intrigerend fenomeen dat zich onderscheidt door hun grote driehoekige vorm, donkere kleur, lage vlieghoogte, stille beweging en complexe manoeuvres. Ze blijven een bron van speculatie en onderzoek, en roepen vragen op over de technologische capaciteiten en mogelijke doelen van deze mysterieuze objecten.
Geschiedenis van de waarnemingen
De geschiedenis van de waarnemingen van Black Triangle UFOs is rijk en fascinerend, met een lange geschiedenis die teruggaat tot de late jaren tachtig. Deze mysterieuze driehoekige objecten worden gekenmerkt door hun grote afmetingen, opvallende vorm en vaak hun stille, glijdende bewegingen aan de hemel. De eerste uitgebreide documentatie van dergelijke waarnemingen kwam vooral in de jaren tachtig en negentig naar voren, met enkele opvallende incidenten die tot op heden voor veel discussie zorgen.
Een van de meest gerenommeerde en invloedrijke gebeurtenissen in de geschiedenis van Black Triangle UFO's was de zogenaamde "Belgian Wave." Deze gebeurtenis vond plaats tussen 1989 en 1990 in België en betekende een keerpunt in de UFO-onderzoeken. Tijdens deze periode meldden honderden mensen het zien van grote, driehoekige objecten die zich geruisloos en langzaam door de lucht bewogen. Wat deze waarnemingen bijzonder maakte, was niet alleen de frequentie ervan, maar ook de consistentie in de beschrijvingen: de objecten hadden meestal een driehoekige vorm, vaak met meerdere lichten die op de hoeken en soms in het midden van het object brandden. Verschillende waarnemingen werden ondersteund door radarbeelden en foto- en videomateriaal, wat de geloofwaardigheid van de meldingen versterkte. De Belgische overheid en diverse UFO-onderzoeksgroepen onderzochten deze incidenten grondig, zonder dat er tot op heden een definitieve verklaring is gegeven.
Naast de Belgische incidenten was er in de Verenigde Staten een vergelijkbare gebeurtenis die bekendstaat als de "Phoenix Lights" in 1997. Tijdens deze gebeurtenis werden duizenden mensen getuige van een enorme, driehoekige formatie die in de lucht verscheen boven Phoenix, Arizona. De objecten werden beschreven als groot, donker en stil, en bewogen zich in een vloeiende beweging zonder geluid. Ook hier werden het fenomeen vastgelegd op fotografie en videobeelden, wat de speculaties over buitenaardse oorsprong verder aanwakkerde. Hoewel de Amerikaanse autoriteiten aanvankelijk beweerden dat het om militaire oefenvliegtuigen ging, bleef het publieke debat over de ware aard van de waarnemingen bestaan.
In de loop der jaren werden dergelijke waarnemingen wereldwijd gerapporteerd, vaak met vergelijkbare kenmerken: grote afmetingen, driehoekige vorm, stilzwijgend en geruisloos vliegend, en vaak in de schemering of nacht. Wetenschappers en UFO-onderzoekers speculeren over de mogelijke oorsprong van deze objecten. Sommigen geloven dat het gaat om geavanceerde technologieën van de mens, mogelijk geheime militaire projecten, terwijl anderen denken aan buitenaardse voertuigen die ons bezoeken.
De geschiedenis van Black Triangle UFO's blijft dus een boeiend en onopgelost mysterie. Wat deze waarnemingen uniek maakt, is niet alleen de consistentie in vorm en gedrag, maar ook de omvang en de vele getuigenissen die het fenomeen ondersteunen. Tot op heden blijven onderzoekers zich inzetten om meer inzicht te krijgen in deze verschijnselen, met hoop dat toekomstige technologieën en onderzoeksmethoden meer duidelijkheid zullen brengen over de ware aard van deze mysterieuze objecten.
Wetenschappelijke benadering en verklaringen
De fenomenen rondom zogenaamde “Black Triangle UFOs” zijn de laatste decennia onderwerp van intensief onderzoek en discussie binnen de wetenschappelijke gemeenschap. Hoewel er geen definitieve verklaring bestaat voor alle waarnemingen, hebben onderzoekers verschillende hypotheses voorgesteld, gebaseerd op zowel natuurlijke als menselijke oorzaken, evenals op meer speculatieve theorieën over buitenaardse aanwezigheid en geavanceerde technologieën. In dit overzicht wordt een systematische en volledige uiteenzetting gegeven van de meest gangbare verklaringen, onderbouwd door wetenschappelijke theorieën en verklaringen.
Natuurlijke en menselijke oorzaken
Een eerste categorie verklaringen betreft natuurlijke fenomenen en menselijke technologieën die de waargenomen objecten kunnen nabootsen of verklaren. Deze verklaringen worden vaak aangehangen bij skeptici en onderzoekers die de waarnemingen willen contextualiseren binnen bekende wetenschappelijke kaders.
a. Militaire en geheime technologieën
Een veelgehoorde hypothese betreft de aanwezigheid van geavanceerde militaire en geheime vliegtuig- of drone- technologieën. Verschillende experts vermoeden dat de objecten die worden waargenomen, in werkelijkheid geheime prototypes of experimentele voertuigen zijn die nog niet publiekelijk bekend zijn gemaakt. Dit zou verklaren waarom deze objecten vaak grote afmetingen en stilstaande bewegingen vertonen, kenmerken die passen bij stealth-technologieën en camouflage.
In het bijzonder worden stealth-vliegtuigen zoals de F-35 en F-22 vaak genoemd; deze beschikken over geavanceerde radar- en infrarood-onderdrukkingssystemen die de detectie bemoeilijken. Daarnaast werken militaire labs aan nieuwe, nog niet geopenbaarde voertuigen die gebruikmaken van futuristische technologieën zoals plasma-schermen, adaptieve camouflage en geluidloos vliegen. De waarnemingen van grote, stilstaande of langzaam bewegende driehoeken kunnen hierdoor verklaard worden als testvluchten of prototypes die nog niet officieel bekendgemaakt zijn.
b. Luchtvaart- en atmosferische fenomenen
Een andere verklaring betreft natuurlijke verschijnselen en atmosferische condities die optische illusies of misinterpretaties kunnen veroorzaken. Bijvoorbeeld, halo’s, lenticulair wolken, lichtreflecties of spiegelingen kunnen leiden tot het ontstaan van vormen die lijken op vliegende objecten.
Sommige waarnemingen kunnen verklaard worden door het observeren van ballonnen of drones die op grote afstand of onder ongunstige lichtomstandigheden worden gezien. Bij zonsopgang of zonsondergang kunnen licht- en schaduwspelingen de indruk wekken van grote, stilstaande objecten in de lucht. Daarnaast kunnen atmosferische verschijnselen zoals inversies, refracties en lichtbreking leiden tot visuele vertekeningen, die door getuigen worden geïnterpreteerd als vreemde voertuigen.
Alternatieve en speculatieve theorieën
Naast de meer gangbare verklaringen, worden er ook meer controversiële en speculatieve theorieën voorgesteld door onderzoekers en UFO-enthousiastelingen. Deze theorieën proberen de waarnemingen te koppelen aan buitenaardse aanwezigheid of ultrageheime technologieën.
a. Buitenaardse oorsprong
Een van de populairste hypothesen onder UFO-onderzoekers is dat sommige Black Triangle-incidenten het bewijs vormen van buitenaardse voertuigen die onze atmosfeer bezoeken. Onderzoekers wijzen op de consistentie van bepaalde kenmerken, zoals de grote afmetingen, de vorm en de wijze waarop de objecten bewegen, als bewijs voor niet-aardse herkomst.
Daarnaast wordt gewezen op getuigenissen van piloten, militairen en civiele getuigen die spreken over onverklaarbare waarnemingen die niet overeenkomen met bekende menselijke technologie. Sommige incidenten worden zelfs gemeld met radar- en video-opnames, wat de plausibiliteit van buitenaardse herkomst versterkt.
b. Topgeheime technologie en futuristische experimenten
Een andere theorie stelt dat deze objecten het resultaat zijn van ultrageheime militaire projecten. Sommige wetenschappers en analisten geloven dat de objecten bewijs kunnen zijn van futuristische experimenten met technologieën die nog niet publiekelijk bekend zijn. Dit zou kunnen variëren van nieuwe vormen van voortstuwing tot energiebronnen die ver buiten onze huidige wetenschappelijke kennis liggen.
Volgens deze hypothese kunnen de Black Triangles in werkelijkheid geavanceerde drones of voertuigen zijn die ontwikkeld worden in geheime bases zoals Area 51 en andere clandestiene onderzoeksfaciliteiten. Sommige onderzoekers suggereren bovendien dat deze technologieën mogelijk geïnspireerd zijn door buitenaardse technologie, of dat er op zijn minst een wisselwerking is tussen menselijke en buitenaardse onderzoeksinitiatieven.
Kritische beschouwing en wetenschappelijke standpunten
Hoewel bovenstaande verklaringen plausibel lijken, is het belangrijk om te benadrukken dat de wetenschap nog geen sluitende bewijzen heeft voor een buitenaardse of geheime oorsprong van deze objecten. Veel waarnemingen blijven onverklaard en roepen vragen op, wat de interesse en speculatie aanwakkert.
Wetenschappers benadrukken dat een rigoureuze wetenschappelijke aanpak vereist is, inclusief het verzamelen van objectief bewijs zoals radarbeelden, fotomateriaal en getuigenverklaringen die geverifieerd kunnen worden. Tot nu toe ontbreekt het nog aan dergelijk bewijs dat definitief kan aantonen dat deze fenomenen buitenaards van oorsprong zijn of dat ze het resultaat zijn van geheime technologieën.
Conclusie
De verklaringen voor de Black Triangle UFO-waarnemingen variëren van natuurlijke en menselijke bronnen tot meer exotische theorieën over buitenaardse wezens en ultrageheime militaire projecten. De meest gangbare en wetenschappelijk onderbouwde verklaringen wijzen op natuurlijke atmosferische verschijnselen en de aanwezigheid van geheim ontwikkelde militaire technologieën. Echter, de consistentie en onverklaarbaarheid van sommige incidenten blijven vragen oproepen en stimuleren verder onderzoek.
Het is essentieel dat toekomstige studies zich baseren op objectief bewijs en transparantie, zodat een definitieve verklaring kan worden gevonden. Totdat dat mogelijk is, blijven deze fenomenen een intrigerend onderwerp dat de grens tussen wetenschap, technologie en het onbekende verkent. De voortdurende ontwikkeling van detectiemethoden en het verzamelen van betrouwbare data zullen hopelijk in de toekomst meer duidelijkheid scheppen over de ware aard van deze mysterieuze objecten.
Onderzoek en bewijsmateriaal
Onderzoek en bewijsmateriaal vormen de kern van de discussie rond onverklaarbare fenomenen, zoals UFO’s en vreemde objecten aan de hemel. Verschillende overheden en instanties hebben documenten en rapporten vrijgegeven die proberen inzicht te geven in deze waarnemingen. Zo heeft het Britse Ministerie van Defensie in het verleden bewijs gedeeld dat sommige waarnemingen niet konden worden verklaard binnen de bestaande kennis over luchtvaart en technologie. Deze documenten suggereren dat er waarnemingen waren die te complex of onduidelijk waren voor de betrokken onderzoekers.
Ook de Verenigde Staten en de FBI hebben een grote hoeveelheid informatie vrijgegeven over UFO-waarnemingen. Bijvoorbeeld, er zijn incidenten waarbij driehoekige objecten werden gezien, die zich bewegen op manieren die niet overeenkomen met bekende vliegtuigen, drones of natuurlijke fenomenen. Sommige van deze documenten bevatten verklaringen van militairen en getuigen die objecten zagen die snel manoeuvreerden, stil konden blijven hangen of ongebruikelijke snelheden bereikten.
Fotografisch en videocaptatie-materiaal speelt een cruciale rol in het bewijsmateriaal. Diverse beelden en filmpjes tonen objecten met ongewone vormen en gedrag, zoals het ontbreken van vleugels of het maken van scherpe bochten bij hoge snelheid. Sommige beelden lijken te bevestigen dat deze objecten niet voldoen aan de wetten van de natuurkunde zoals wij die kennen. Echter, het interpreteren van deze beelden blijft controversieel, mede door de mogelijkheid van digitale bewerkingen of interpretatiefouten.
Radar- en sensorgegevens vormen een andere belangrijke bron van bewijs. Deze gegevens kunnen objecten traceren en hun snelheid, hoogte en beweging vastleggen. Soms worden deze gegevens bevestigd door meerdere systemen en observaties, wat de betrouwbaarheid versterkt. Toch blijven er vragen bestaan over de interpretatie ervan, vooral omdat technologische beperkingen en menselijke fouten niet altijd uitgesloten kunnen worden.
Kortom, het bewijs voor onverklaarbare luchtfenomenen wordt ondersteund door diverse documenten, beelden en meetgegevens. Hoewel veel waarnemingen niet volledig verklaard kunnen worden, blijft de wetenschappelijke en overheidsinteresse groot. De combinatie van getuigenissen, visueel bewijs en technische data vormt de basis voor verder onderzoek en discussie over de aard en oorsprong van deze mysterieuze fenomenen.
Waarom blijven ze onopgelost?
De complexiteit van het fenomeen, de beperkte en vaak niet-verifieerbare aard van getuigenissen, en de geheime aard van militaire technologie compliceren het onderzoek aanzienlijk. Ten eerste speelt de moeilijkheid om betrouwbare en consistente waarnemingen te verkrijgen een grote rol. Veel getuigenissen komen voort uit menselijke perceptie, die niet altijd accuraat is, vooral onder stressvolle of onverwachte omstandigheden. Daarnaast zijn er talloze gevallen waarin getuigenissen niet kunnen worden bevestigd of herhaald, wat het bewijsfragmentarisch maakt. De menselijke geest is bovendien geneigd tot interpretatie, waardoor percepties kunnen worden beïnvloed door verwachtingen, culturele factoren of psychologische processen, zoals cognitieve bias en illusies.
Verder is de geheime aard van militaire technologie een groot obstakel. Overheden en militaire instanties houden vaak details over geavanceerde technologieën en onderzoeksprojecten verborgen, uit geheime strategische overwegingen. Dit betekent dat veel van de technologie die wordt waargenomen of gerapporteerd, mogelijk niet bekend is bij het grote publiek en niet wordt erkend door officiële instanties. Het ontbreken van transparantie en het niet openbaar maken van gegevens maken het moeilijk om conclusies te trekken of om bewijs te beoordelen. Ook speelt de angst voor nationale veiligheidsrisico’s een rol: het openbaar maken van bepaalde informatie kan diplomatieke of militaire belangen schaden en daarom wordt alles wat met dergelijke fenomenen te maken heeft, vaak onder de pet gehouden.
Daarnaast kunnen optische illusies, menselijke perceptie en psychologische factoren bijdragen aan de waarnemingen. Bijvoorbeeld, weersomstandigheden, lichtverstrooiing, of technische verschijnselen zoals satellieten en weerballonnen kunnen onbedoeld voor verwarring zorgen. Mensen kunnen ook door verwachtingen en overtuigingen worden beïnvloed, waardoor ze bepaalde fenomenen anders interpreteren dan ze in werkelijkheid zijn. Psychologische factoren zoals hysterie, massahysterie, en cognitieve biases dragen er ook toe bij dat onduidelijke of onverklaarbare waarnemingen blijven bestaan. Kortom, de combinatie van technologische geheimhouding, menselijke perceptie en het onvermogen om betrouwbare bewijs te verkrijgen, zorgt ervoor dat veel UFO-gerelateerde fenomenen onopgelost blijven.
De rol van overheidsinstanties en de publieke perceptie
Overheidsinstanties wereldwijd hebben zich vaak terughoudend opgesteld of slechts beperkte officiële verklaringen afgelegd over UFO’s en gerelateerde fenomenen. Dit komt voort uit verschillende strategische en veiligheidsbelangen. Ten eerste willen ze nationale veiligheid beschermen door geen details prijs te geven over mogelijke geavanceerde technologieën of waarnemingen die niet volledig begrepen worden. Het openbaar maken van dergelijke informatie zou kunnen leiden tot paniek, onrust of het ontdekken van militaire zwaktes. Vanuit strategisch oogpunt is het dus begrijpelijk dat overheden terughoudend zijn om volledige openheid te geven over deze fenomenen.
Daarnaast speelt de angst dat het publiek in paniek zou kunnen raken of dat er een verlies van vertrouwen in de autoriteiten ontstaat, een belangrijke reden voor het niet delen van alle informatie. Ook is er een geschiedenis van het onderdrukken of minimaliseren van UFO-gerelateerde informatie, zoals in de periode van de Koude Oorlog, toen veel rapportages werden ontkend of verborgen. Dit heeft bijgedragen aan een sfeer van wantrouwen en complottheorieën, waarin de overheid wordt gezien als degene die informatie achterhoudt over buitenaardse contacten of geheime technologieën.
De publieke perceptie wordt daarnaast sterk beïnvloed door media, films en literatuur, die vaak een mystiek en buitenaards karakter aan UFO’s toekennen. Deze verhalen versterken de indruk dat er meer aan de hand is dan alleen natuurlijke of menselijke oorzaak. Getuigenissen van piloten, militairen en ooggetuigen dragen bij aan de geloofwaardigheid van het fenomeen, vooral wanneer zij beschrijven dat ze onverklaarbare, buitenaardse schepen hebben waargenomen of contact hebben gehad. Het is deze combinatie van overheidsverschijningen en media-invloed die ervoor zorgt dat het publieke debat over UFO’s blijft voortduren, zelfs zonder officieel erkende bewijzen. Het resultaat is een voortdurende mix van scepsis, nieuwsgierigheid en geloof, waardoor het fenomeen onopgelost blijft en blijft intrigeren.
Controverses en kritische beschouwingen
Veel onderzoekers, skeptici en wetenschappelijke critici uiten grote twijfel over de interpretaties van Black Triangle-waarnemingen. Zij stellen dat veel van deze incidenten kunnen worden toegeschreven aan menselijke fouten, optische illusies, weersomstandigheden of natuurlijke fenomenen zoals atmosferische anomalieën. Daarnaast wordt er vaak gewezen op de rol van geheime militaire projecten en technologieën die wellicht voor verwarring zorgen of onterecht worden toegeschreven aan buitenaardse verschijnselen. Een veelgehoorde kritiek is dat er bij veel rapportages een gebrek aan solide bewijs is, waardoor de assertions over buitenaardse oorsprong niet wetenschappelijk kunnen worden onderbouwd. Bovendien bestaat de angst dat media en populaire cultuur de waarnemingen overdrijven, wat leidt tot sensatiezucht en het ontstaan van mythen rondom de Dark Triangles. Deze kritieken benadrukken het belang van kritisch onderzoek en het voorkomen van overhaaste conclusies zonder voldoende bewijs. Het risico van een ‘pseudowetenschappelijke’ benadering wordt door velen als schadelijk gezien voor het serieus nemen van onverklaarde fenomenen. Toch erkent men dat menselijke waarnemingen soms onvolledig en subjectief kunnen zijn, en dat het niet uitsluiten van het bestaan van buitenaardse technologieën niet betekent dat we het fenomeen zomaar moeten afdoen als fictie. Het is daarom essentieel dat verder wetenschappelijk onderzoek, met strenge methoden en transparantie, wordt gestimuleerd om de ware aard van deze mysterieuze objecten te achterhalen.
Conclusie
Black Triangle UFO's blijven een intrigerend en complex fenomeen dat zowel de nieuwsgierigheid van het publiek als de interesse van de wetenschap wekt. Hoewel veel waarnemingen kunnen worden verklaard door menselijke fouten, optische illusies of geheime militaire technologieën, blijven er incidenten over die moeilijk te verklaren zijn. Deze onverklaarbare gevallen roepen vragen op over de mogelijke aanwezigheid van buitenaardse bezoekers en de aard van de technieken die in het geheim worden ontwikkeld door overheden. Het ontbreken van sluitend bewijs betekent dat het onderwerp nog altijd in de sfeer van speculatie opereert. Het is daarom cruciaal dat toekomstig onderzoek wordt gevoerd met meer transparantie, openheid en geavanceerde technologieën. Alleen door een wetenschappelijke en onbevooroordeelde aanpak kunnen we mogelijk de ware aard achter deze mysterieuze objecten achterhalen en definitief uitsluitsel geven over hun oorsprong. Het onderwerp blijft spannend en relevant, omdat het niet alleen onze nieuwsgierigheid prikkelt, maar ook onze kijk op de wereld en onze plaats daarin uitdaagt. Met de voortgang van wetenschap en techniek is er hoop op meer duidelijkheid in de toekomst, zodat we wellicht eens definitief kunnen vaststellen of deze mysterieuze zwarte driehoeken buitenaardse bezoekers vertegenwoordigen of dat ze simpelweg het resultaat zijn van menselijke technologie en natuurlijke verschijnselen.
Bronnen en verdere leestips
MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) - Onderzoeksorganisatie die incidenten documenteert.
British Ministry of Defence documents - Over UFO-waarnemingen en rapporten.
"UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go On the Record" door Leslie Kean.
Wetenschappelijke artikelen over atmospherische en optische verschijnselen.
Frequente media-rapportages en documentaires over Black Triangle UFOs.
This is a mind-blowing but controversial theory by Julian Jaynes, who suggested that Ancient humans lacked modern consciousness, mistook inner voices as commands from gods, and even cared for dead relatives as if they were still alive due to a divided “Bicameral” mind.
In his book ‘The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind‘, Jaynes argued that the “bicameral mind” was a way of thinking where people literally heard voices in their heads and obeyed them like divine commands. He believed this mental state stopped working around 3,000 years ago, near the end of the Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean.
He said this change led to the rise of modern human consciousness, where people became more self-aware and made decisions on their own.
Jaynes also suggested that people we now call schizophrenic might still have parts of this old way of thinking, and if someone from ancient times were alive today, we would likely see them as schizophrenic too.
In 1976, an American psychologist named Julian Jaynes, who lived from 1920 to 1997, published his book, he made a bold and unusual claim: that humans weren’t actually aware of their own thoughts until about 1000 BC.
He believed that when ancient people heard inner voices in their heads, they didn’t realize those voices came from their own minds. Instead, they thought these voices were gods speaking to them and telling them what to do, which is how stories of divine communication may have started. (Source)
Julian Jaynes
Jaynes introduced his theory about the bicameral mind in the 1970s, most psychologists didn’t respond positively.
In January 1979, William Thomas Jones wrote a paper questioning how any intelligent person could believe Jaynes’s theory. He analyzed the book in detail to show why Jaynes’s conclusions were unrealistic and explored why, despite this, some people still took his ideas seriously.
Jones argued that Jaynes’s supporters were drawn to the theory because they disliked Darwinian evolution and natural selection, felt nostalgic for the supposed lost state of bicamerality, and wanted a simple theory that could explain everything about human nature.
Today, no academic historian or anthropologist believes in Jaynes’s theory. You might find a rare psychologist who still supports it, but they are very few. Most philosophers who study the mind also reject it.
However, one well-known philosopher, Daniel Dennett, while acknowledging the theory has problems, says it should still be taken seriously.
He admits that most philosophers find the idea ridiculous at first, and he often has to convince them just to consider it. He himself takes it seriously enough to try to explain what Jaynes was really aiming for.
Even though experts have mostly dismissed the theory, it has still found a place in popular culture. In 2006, a writer named Terence Hawkins used Jaynes’s idea to retell the story of the Iliad in his novel The Rage of Achilles.
In the book, the gods are explained as products of the bicameral mind, and only characters like Odysseus and Paris have modern consciousness, while the rest still hear voices as commands from gods.
More recently, the theory appeared in the HBO show Westworld. But instead of applying it to humans, the show used it to describe how robots become conscious.
This made the idea a bit more believable. The show also wisely admitted that, when it comes to humans, the theory is considered “debunked.”
One big problem with Jaynes’s theory is the actual structure of the human brain. Scientists generally agree that how our brains are built is closely connected to how we think. Even people who believe that the mind and brain are separate still admit there’s a strong link between the two.
Jaynes claimed that ancient humans didn’t have consciousness like we do today. But if that were true, we would expect that their brains looked or were structured very differently from ours. However, this is not the case. Evidence from ancient skulls and even some preserved brains shows that the structure of the human brain has been almost exactly the same for at least the last 10,000 years.
For example, if you look at the skull of someone who lived in ancient Sumer around 3000 BC, you’ll see that their brain case is nearly identical to that of a person who died just recently. Even in cases where ancient brains have been naturally preserved, like in mummies or frozen bodies, the brain’s structure is the same as ours today.
So far, there is no physical evidence showing that human brains were built differently before around 1000 BC. This makes it very hard to support Jaynes’s idea.
If ancient humans really thought in a completely different way before 1000 BC, as Jaynes’s theory suggests, we should also see big differences in how they behaved. But the evidence doesn’t support that. Instead, what we see is that ancient people often acted very much like we do today, even though their cultures and societies were different.
One strong example is from ancient Mesopotamia, where people wrote customer complaint letters that sound surprisingly modern. A famous case involves a copper merchant named Ea-Nasir, who lived in the city of Ur around the 18th century BC. Archaeologists found several clay tablets from angry customers addressed to him. The most detailed one is from a man named Nanni, who was clearly upset about poor-quality copper and bad treatment.
In his letter, Nanni reminds Ea-Nasir of a promise to deliver good copper, complains about receiving low-quality goods, and scolds him for sending messengers back empty-handed through dangerous territory. He insists on better treatment and demands to inspect future deliveries himself. His tone, frustration, and the way he argues his case are all very familiar, like something someone today might write in an angry email or online review.
Julian Jaynes’s idea is controversial, but fascinating.. Today, it might be even more important because we are creating something like a new kind of bicameral mind, which is part human and part artificial intelligence. This is already happening with chatbots, which are becoming more like human beings in the way we talk to them and treat them. (Source)
However, even though we often act like chatbots are people, we know they are different. We don’t talk to them as if they have feelings or self-awareness.
If we truly thought a chatbot was a real person, we would treat it differently; we wouldn’t ask it embarrassing questions or bother it the way we sometimes do. While some people say polite words like “thank you” or “please” to chatbots, these bots still feel like something else, more like an imaginary friend. So, in a way, we are going back to a new kind of bicameral mind where we interact with a voice that is not really us, but something we help create in our minds.
The theory of “presence,” which means feeling like someone is really there during a conversation or interaction. When someone has a strong presence, they affect the situation in a good way.
It’s hard to imagine talking to someone without feeling their presence. The book Presence: The Strange Science and True Stories of the Unseen Other by psychologist Ben Alderson-Day looks closely at this idea. He discussed how people with schizophrenia might hear voices and how explorers sometimes feel like there is an invisible person with them on lonely trips.
Presence is something we notice and also create ourselves. It’s like opening a window on a computer screen that sets the stage for what happens next. Being able to feel and make a presence is very important for communication, and it happens because of relationships with other people.
Sometimes, people feel a presence even when they are alone, like in an empty house or on a lonely walk. This happens because our minds are made to connect with others, so if no one is there, the mind can create a pretend presence. This means that we might still be “bicameral” in a way, but the two parts exist between different people, not inside one person.
One interesting example is a Tibetan tulpa, which is an imaginary presence created on purpose. People build this presence carefully, giving it its personality and intentions, and then it feels like a separate person, even though it’s made by the mind.
Everyone has some experience with this because many of us have had imaginary friends as children. These imaginary friends help us practice having conversations with someone else safely, like training for social skills when we are young.
Things have changed with the rise of advanced language models like AI chatbots. These AI systems can create a kind of presence, making us feel like they are intentional beings we can interact with.
For an artificial intelligence to work, it needs to create this artificial presence. What’s amazing is that large language models have done this so well that many people don’t even realize it.
Now, our world is filled with these new kinds of presences, and we interact with them in many ways. In a way, we are like modern “tulpamancers” again—not just making imaginary friends, but creating something different and possibly deeper, like a new kind of bicameral mind shared between humans and AI.
In this series we're exploring NASA's top five challenges as detailed in itsCivil Space Shortfall Ranking, which is basically NASA's Christmas wish list. These are the technologies that NASA believes we need to develop if we want to go to space…and stay there.
Next we have number four: improved navigation.
We all take for granted our handy little cell phones, these magical rectangles that let us communicate instantly with anyone in the world…or scroll social media until our brains go numb. Related to that is the ease of navigation. Or you can plug in an address or drop a pin, and boom there you, the fastest route to grandma's house. Oh yeah, and you always know what time it is, day or night or season of the year…so that you know you're late for dinner.
All of this is easy for us to use because it was hard for someone else to create. To make a call, our cell phone connects to a nearby tower, of which there are approximately a bajillion, which is then connected to a vast globe-spanning network of wires and undersea cables. As for our position and navigation, that's all handled by hundreds of satellites in orbit around the Earth, with several different networks: The United State's Global Position System (the OG), Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System, China's BeiDou, and the European Union's Galileo. We have all that, plus a host of regional and local space- and ground-based location services, all overlapping and working together to provide that pinpoint accuracy.
But in space, like on the Moon or Mars, we have…none of that. Zero. No GPS satellites, no globe-spanning networks. Just radio broadcasts from command centers here on Earth to tell our robots and crews what to do.
And so we have the next high priority challenge we have to navigate (ha, ha) to achieve a permanent presence in space: all that stuff, but in space. So what would this look like?
The most important step is to create a mini-GPS for the Moon, with a constellation of satellites doing for the Moon what they already do for the Earth. Plus we need to augment that with relay stations and repeaters at lunar bases or centers of exploration, because we probably won't have enough signal strength to whip out our cell phones in the middle of Mare Vaporum. The hope is that our first generation of lunar GPS will be enough to match our first explorations, and then we can expand the system to match the needs of further lunar activities.
But in order to make that lunar GPS system, we need to deploy in space one critical piece of technology: atomic clocks. Atomic clocks are ultra-precise…well, clocks, that rely on the resonant frequency of atoms to monitor the passage of time. We already have atomic clocks in space, because every single GPS satellite has several of them onboard – that's the key component to the entire navigation system. But for deep-space work we need to be much more sophisticated. Earth-based atomic clocks can get away with some uncertainty, because they are always cross-checking and correcting each other. That won't be an option around the Moon or Mars, where a small network of satellites will have to keep perfect time.
Precise timing is necessary for pinpointing a satellite's location. If you receive a signal from the satellite from a ground station, you need to know how long it took for you to receive the signal to figure out where the satellite is.
In June of 2019 NASA launched the Deep Space Atomic Clock, or DSAC, which operated for two years, maintain an accuracy of better than 1 nanosecond in 10 days – the means after ten years, the clock would only be off by a microsecond. NASA has recognized that to enable long-term deep-space activities,we need to be even more accurate than that.
Lunar and Martian spacecraft are going to have to be able to navigate autonomously, without human input. As a complement to a space-based GPS system, these spacecraft could also employ a few other tricks. One trick is called radiometric tracking, which uses incoming radio signals to judge the distance to the source of those radio signals. We already use this technique quite frequently, but it's limited to one dimension: the direction towards the Earth, which is the origin of any radio signal that a spacecraft might pick up. Decades from now, we hope to have radio signals coming from lunar and Martian bases, and even asteroids, and a sufficiently sophisticated spacecraft might be able to pick up all these signals and figure out where it is in the solar system.
Speaking of weak radio signals, Lunar operations would benefit from our existing GPS network. Yes, those GPS satellites are aiming their signals down to the Earth, but some of that signal leaks out into outer space. We might be able to piggyback off that signal to at least get our navigation game started.
They allegedly came from Space, appeared metallic, and prompted official investigations. Were the mystery objects downed in Canada, Bolivia, and Russia genuine UFOs or some sort of secret space probes?
There are dozens of reported downed UFOs around the globe—some better documented and more credible than others. This article will address three of the best international cases including the unknown “dark object” that splashed off the Atlantic Coast near the small fishing village of Shag Harbour in Nova Scotia, Canada, on October 4, 1967; the powerful impact of an unknown space object in a remote mountainous area in Bolivia’s Tarija Department, on May 6, 1978; and the crash of a mysterious probe on Hill 611 in the Russian Pacific city of Dalnegorsk on January 29, 1986.
Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1967
The author (center) with researcher Chris Styles (in black) on the site were witnesses gathered to sea the object that crashed in the ocean in 1967. Credit: A. Huneeus
Dozens of witnesses saw unidentified lights falling into the Atlantic Ocean on the southeastern coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, on the night of October 4, 1967. The investigation and search effort to recover debris involved Canadian military and police agencies, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the ‘Air Desk’ at the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in charge of UFO investigations, and the Coast Guard and Royal Navy Maritime Command, which coordinated a search effort with divers. Although widely reported by the media at the time, the case was quickly forgotten until 1993, when Halifax researcher Chris Styles began a new investigation into the incident.
Shag Harbour, as the case has come to be known, has a unique advantage over other alleged UFO crashes because, as Styles states, it offers an “official paper trail.” These are genuine officially released Canadian government documents, not some disputed memos commonly found in ufology. That’s why when a book about this incident, Dark Object, was published in 2001 by Styles and coauthor Don Ledger, it carried the subtitle of, “The World’s Only Government-Documented UFO Crash.”
A “Priority” telex to Canadian Forces Headquarters, dated October 5, 1967, titled, “UFO Report,” tells the story succinctly:
Night clear, no Moon. Cpl. (Corporal) Wercicky [sic] RCMP Barrington Passage outside Lower Woods Harbour, [Nova Scotia] & other witnesses – names known to RCMP Cpl. – dark object – in excess of 60 ft. – 4 white lights horizontally 15 ft. spacing – movement easterly low altitude down to water surface unknown but in excess of five minutes UFO descended rapidly to water with high whistling sound. Bright flash on hitting water. Single light floating on surface remained for long time sank before RCMP could get boat to it. Area searched extensively by [Canadian Coast Guard] lifeboat 101 and many small boats – nil results. Position of last sighting 4330.5N 6545W. All other possible leads ([aircraft], flares, etc.) checked – nil results. Follow up: at 03:21:57 Coast Guard Cutter 101 proceeding to area with RCMP on board to research area based on A/Ref Baton Point.
Canadian UFO report in the Shag Harbour UFO Incident summary. (Credit: Canada Library and Archives)
I know his case quite well as I visited the area twice, once in 1996 and again in 2003, interviewing Styles and a couple of witnesses, including retired RCMP officer Victor Werbicki, who was one of the first Mounties to arrive on the scene. In a telephone interview from his home in Alberta, Werbicki stated,
From my investigation and talking to many people, some good witnesses who saw the object, I sincerely felt that something fell down, but we could find no evidence. It came down at an angle supposedly at the channel, it was just unexplained. I was convinced, and I still am, that these people were sincere. I was convinced from all the witnesses that something came down and I don’t know what.
Most accounts place the beginning of the Shag Harbour incident around 11 p.m., when dozens of fishermen and some policemen saw lights plunging into the ocean. Their initial reaction was that an airplane had just crashed. Many vessels rushed to the spot, expecting to rescue survivors, but instead found the whole area covered with yellow foam. One of the documents uncovered by Styles, however, was a report by Leo Howard Mersey, captain of the J.B. Nickerson ship, who saw a UFO in the area a couple of hours earlier, adding that the object was also detected by the ship’s radar. Mersey’s report to the RCMP detachment in Lunenburg described the sighting:
At about 9 PM, on the 4 OCT 67, I noticed an object with three flashing red lights. Radar indicated this object to be sixteen miles away. It was very clear that night and we could see the lights of Halifax. At the time our boat was 32 miles south of Sambro Light and the object was approximately 16 miles north east of us… At the same time there were three other objects on the radar and about 6 miles from the first object. I would say it disappeared about 11:00 PM, when it went up in the air. I could not see any shape or form to it because of the distance. When it went into the air it only had one flashing light. While the object was on the water, or close to the water, it had three real bright flashing red lights… It is not unusual to see the Navy, or aircraft, dropping things into the water there. I had never seen anything like that before but it sounds like the thing they are looking for down off Shelburne or Barrington Passage. When the object left it went straight up in the air with only one red light.
Other witnesses pick up the story about fifteen minutes later, as summarized by Chris Styles, “It began sometime after 11 o’clock October the 4th, which was a moonless clear night. People who were driving or in the area began to notice that there was a set of flashing lights in the sky…most of them reported four, some of them saw them at a sharp angle and saw only three.” The witnesses called the RCMP, and when three officers arrived on the scene, “they could still see a pale yellow object moving on the water that looked unusual, it was leaving a trail of refuse, heavy yellow foam on the surface of the water.” Lawrence Smith, the first seaman to reach the impact area, received a phone call and rushed to the dock, “and got on my boat and then proceeded onto the sea, to the area where this object had gone in the water. I saw like a foam on the water, a long strip of foam, long and narrow, and that’s all I saw that night.”
The search continued the following day and the Canadian Navy arrived at noon on October 6—by this time the event was making headlines in the Canadian press. The Chronicle Herald of Halifax had the banner headline: “COULD BE SOMETHING CONCRETE IN SHAG HARBOR UFO—RCAF.” Other papers talked of a “Hunt for Saucer,” and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation showed newsreels of the navy divers. “The Canadian naval search lasted until Sunday evening,” said Styles, “when the Maritime Command announced that the official naval search was canceled, but many witnesses seem to imply there was some kind of search effort going after that. The stated results of the military search was no results, they had recovered no debris and had no explanation for the object.”
Halifax’s Chronicle-Herald front page headline and other Canadian press stories about the Shag Harbour UFO crash. Credit: Huneeus Collection
An official memorandum from Col. Turner, Director of Operations at the RCAF Air Desk, summarized the official results: “The Rescue Coordination Centre conducted preliminary investigation and discounted the possibilities that the sighting was produced by an aircraft, flares, floats, or any other known objects.” While the first phase of the Shag Harbour incident can be documented officially, another part of the story is still shrouded in mystery. Styles’ investigation turned up a complex plot involving a second, secret search effort several miles north near Shelburne, next to a then top secret submarine detection base run jointly by the U.S. and Canada, Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Shelburne, which closed down a few years ago. Because he doesn’t have the same level of official documentation, Styles refers to this episode as “the story.” It was told to him confidentially by some divers and other retired military sources.
According to this version, as Styles wrote in a paper for the 1996 MUFON UFO Symposium Proceedings, the crippled UFO that plunged into the ocean near Shag Harbour, “navigated its way, while submerged, to a point on the seabed which lay off Shelburne County’s Government Point.” He continued,
A flotilla of ships sat over the submerged UFO. Consideration was given to the possibility of attempting a recovery operation. Procrastination was due to the fact that a second UFO was on the scene repairing the first crippled craft. The Naval operation would continue for seven days. It remained a mission of observation only. On the seventh day a Soviet submarine violated the former twelve-mile international limit and began to close on the UFO’s position. The surface ships sailed towards the approaching intruder to show challenge. Shortly thereafter, both UFOs began moving while still submerged towards the Gulf of Maine. Later in open water they surfaced, became airborne, and then flew away at high speed. The story also claims that in spite of public denials from Maritime Command, debris was recovered at the Shag Harbour impact site. The Styrofoam-like and aluminum-like debris was collected and driven to the Defense Research Establishment facility in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
Styles concluded:
I really have trouble explaining this in conventional terms. I really try to avoid speculating, but I do feel that when you look at all the composite of evidence from the multiple witnesses, from the military response, from the implications of the physical evidence, I think it’s pretty suggestive that something, either extraterrestrial, extra-temporal or extra-dimensional is responsible. I opt for extraterrestrial myself, and that opens of course a myriad of other questions, but it did imply a nuts and bolt object that was both aerodynamic and hydrodynamic.
In 2003, an official Canada Post stamp was issued to commemorate this mysterious and still unresolved UFO case.
Shag Harbour postage stamp. Credit: Chapel Hill Historical Society
Tarija Department, southeastern Bolivia, near the border of Salta Province, Argentina, 1978
Illustration from the Argentinean magazine Gente showing witnesses looking at the cylindrical object of Tarija. The Spanish caption reads, “Saturday 6 [May 1978], 17:15 Hours. The strange object falls in Bolivia.” Credit: Huneeus Collection/Gente
The Tarija case is probably South America’s best documented and most credible UFO crash incident. There were dozens—probably hundreds—of eyewitnesses who saw a cylindrical-shaped object spewing smoke across the sky on the mid-afternoon of May 6, 1978, and crash on a remote mountain near the Bermejo River, which separates the border betweenBolivia’s Tarija Department and Argentina’s Salta Province. Others heard a loud explosion—a sonic boom heard that was heard within 120 miles that shattered windows of villages over 30 miles from the target site.Some saw a thick column of smoke rising from a mountain known in Argentina as El Taire, or El Zaire, and in Bolivia as Cerro Bravo. Although the incident was widely reported in the South American press, there was a great deal of confusion about the facts. For days it wasn’t clear if the space object had crashed in Bolivian or Argentinean territory, and there was further confusion about its origin—whether it was a meteorite, a man-made space probe, or a real UFO.
The involvement of the U.S. government in this affair provided additional intrigue. The South American press kept mentioning the arrival of NASA experts at the area, and two American military officers in civilian dress were photographed by the local press as they arrived in Tarija supposedly “on vacation.” Some reports allege that metallic fragments and even a large capsule were retrieved and quickly moved away in a U.S. Air Force Hercules cargo plane; other reports claim this was not true, and that something may still be buried under a rock slide. Yet the participation of American officials is not in doubt, as we know from a few documents released by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Air Force that Tarija indeed came under the eye of Project Moon Dust and Operation Blue Fly—two programs headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, which were tasked with retrieving sensitive space debris and “Unidentified Flying Objects,” as stated in a declassified November 1961 Air Force Intelligence memo. The two American officers in Tarija were not NASA scientists, but from the U.S. Defense Attaché Office (DAO) in La Paz, acting under Project Moon Dust guidelines.
The village of La Mamora with the “impact site” on the El Zaire Hill in Bolivia. The headline in the Argentinean weekly Radiolandia 2000 reads: “When the UFO fell, the earth trembled and we were overcome by panic.” Credit: Huneeus Collection/R. 2000
Eduardo Salmón and Bienvenido Ortega were Border Policemen with the 20th Detachment in Orán, Argentina, who were on duty in the village of Aguas Blancas on that May afternoon. A luminous flash caught their eyes, and they watched as an oval-shaped metallic-looking object crossed the sky in a northerly direction, trailing smoke. Seconds later they heard a loud explosion. The troopers were attending a soccer match, which had gathered some five hundred people at the local soccer field. Both players and spectators were astonished by the “fireball” that flew over their heads right before the explosion and the cloud of thick smoke. The closest villages to the impact area on the Bolivian side of the border were Padcaya, Mecoya, and La Mamora. Vélez Orozco was an engineer conducting a survey for a private company in Tarija when he too saw the cylindrical object. He estimated it was four meters in diameter and was conical-shaped in front. The explosion, he added, was louder than the one caused by the reentry of a meteorite a year earlier.
Corporal Natalio Farfán Ruiz was the highest military authority in La Mamora. He told Argentinean reporters:
I don’t know what would have happened if the UFO had fallen on their houses. Can you imagine? Some children live here. It was around 4:30 [p.m.] when a cylinder shook the Earth. I swear that it was horrible, I believed the end of the world was coming, but I had top have courage. After all, I was the authority.
Juan Hurtado, an agent with the Border Intelligence Service, described it this way:
It was like a huge wine container with a brilliant white color spewing smoke out of its back. I saw it quite clearly because it passed over my head. I was with three engineers of the Mining Bank in La Paz when I saw the object crash on the hill of El Zaire. The impact was so strong that it threw me down to the ground. In that moment, the whole Earth trembled.
Eventually, the Bolivian Air Force flew three single-engine AT-6 planes over the area and detected a large rockslide over the southern slopes of Cerro Bravo. The area is extremely rugged and of difficult access. Several expeditions attempted to reach the exact impact site, but only the second group, headed by Major Germán Callejas, was able to locate the rockslide around May 24. A great deal of confusion surrounded the case by that time. On May 14, the Buenos Aires newspaper Clarín reported that the object had been recovered—“a metallic-dull cylinder, four meters long and with some dents”—and that NASA officials would take charge of it. A sketch of the alleged retrieved object published by Clarín resembled a Gemini or Apollo space capsule. There was also a great deal of apprehension that it could be a Soviet nuclear satellite—Cosmos 954 had crashed in northern Canada only three months earlier on January 24, 1978. Finally, there was talk of a meteorite, although my own personal inquiries with the Smithsonian’s Scientific Event Alert Network (SEAN), which tracks natural disasters, showed no meteorite fall in Bolivia in May 1978.
The South American press was full of stories of NASA officials arriving in Tarija, but the truth is that the two military officers who showed up, Col. Robert Simmons and Major John Heisse, were most likely from the U.S. Defense Attaché Office (DAO) in La Paz, who were acting on behalf of Project Moon Dust, which oversaw the retrieval of downed space objects. We know the U.S. government was involved because at least some documents from the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Air Force were later obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Key among these documents is a May 18 telegram, classified “Secret,” and bearing the name of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, although it was drafted by Col. Robert Eddington from the State Department’s Bureau of Oceans, International Environment, and Scientific Affairs. The message indicated that the Tarija case, “has been checked with appropriate government agencies. No direct correlation with known space objects that may have reentered the earth’s atmosphere near May 6 can be made. However, we are continuing to examine any possibilities.” The message then referred the U.S. Embassy in La Paz to, “State Airgram A-6343 of July 26, 1973 which provides background information and guidance for dealing with space objects that have been found.” Secretary Vance concluded: “In particular any information pertaining to the pre-impact observations, direction or trajectory, number of objects observed, time of impact and a detailed description including any markings would be helpful.”
U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance’s “Secret” telex, “Report of Fallen Space Object,” concerning the May 1978 Tarija case. Credit: Huneeus Collection
Additional data is provided by a couple of documents from the DAO in La Paz under the subject of Moon Dust. “This office has tried to verify the stories put forth in…the local press,” informed the DAO, adding that their office had contacted the chief of staff of the Bolivian Air Force and the commander of the Bolivian Army, both of whom indicated that search parties were “directed to go into the area to find the object but found nothing.” Two independent American investigators, the seasoned National Enquirer reporter Bob Pratt and Charles Tucker of the International UFO Investigating Bureau, actually visited the area and interviewed many witnesses, including the members of the Bolivian expeditions. Pratt tried to reach the crash site himself but couldn’t because of the difficulties of the terrain. In a 1984 letter, Pratt wrote that “a lot of misinformation has been published about this incident. I am certain, however, that the area was not cordoned off by the military, that no object was recovered by NASA or anyone else, that no Hercules picked up anything.” Pratt finished his letter by stating that, “I believe something crashed into the mountain and was buried under the landslide it created. But the six people I know who have personally inspected the site could find no debris of any kind. Whatever struck there is probably going to remain buried there.”
Dalnegorsk, Russian Pacific Coast, 1986
Although there are several reported UFO crashes in Russia and the republics of the old Soviet Union, the Dalnegorsk incident of 1986 is unique because it is one of the few cases where metallic fragments were recovered and analyzed by scientists with the results openly published. A number of unique circumstances made this possible. The principal investigator of the case, Dr. Valery Dvuzhilny, led a group from the Far Eastern Commission on Anomalous Phenomena, and the timing coincided with the then newly implemented policies of glasnost and perestroika issued by Mikhail Gorbachev, which allowed the publication of the case. Dvuzhilny also corresponded extensively with Western researchers, sending copies of his reports and photos of the recovered evidence.
Dalnegorsk is a small city near Russia’s Pacific Coast, on the Sea of Japan, just north of Vladivostok. The story begins at 7:55 p.m., on January 29, 1986, with the collision of an unknown object on Hill 611 in Dalnegorsk. One of the reports by Dr. Dvuzhilny summarized the events:
Residents of the settlements observed a reddish-orange sphere the size of a half full moon, which flew from the southwest at 260 degrees. Its altitude was 700-800 meters. The flight was parallel to the surface of the Earth, without the angles which are characteristic for meteorites. The witnesses heard absolutely no noises. The calculated speed by chronometer was 15 meters per second. There was no change of direction or altitude.
The object then approached the Izvestkovaya Mountain, or Hill 611, which has an elevation of 600 meters and is located at the center of the city. “The object made a dive and went at an angle of 60-70 degrees on the cliff ledge, where it ‘fell’ and burned for an hour,” continued the report, “some of the witnesses affirm that it rose and lowered itself six times, and that its light was intensified during its rise and weakened during its lowering.” Dvuzhilny and his team arrived on the scene on February 3, finding a number of physical traces, which included lead and iron balls, bits of glass, a fine mesh or netting, traces of high temperature activity, magnetic anomalies, and damage to nearby trees and stumps.
The materials were analyzed by several laboratories and research institutes; the results were quite enigmatic, leading Dvuzhilny and other scientists to conclude that the Dalnegorsk object was probably an artificial space probe of non-terrestrial origin. According to one report published in the influential newspaper, Socialist Industry (now Rabochaya Tribuna), “in the scales (or mesh), almost all the elements of the entire periodic table were found.” Special analysis of the lead balls, for instance, showed that besides lead, they contained silicon (20%), aluminum (10%), iron (15%), zinc (1.5%), titanium (2%), magnesium (1%) and silver (2%), as well as minute portions of copper, lanthanum, praseodymium, calcium, sodium, vanadium, cerium, chrome, cobalt, nickel, and molybdenum.
Metallic fragments consisting of a fine mesh or netting retrieved by scientists at Hill 611 in 1986. Credit: ICUFON Archives/V. Dvuzhilny
The scales, or mesh, reacted in a very strange manner during the laboratory analysis. The Socialist Industry report described how one of the scientists, A. Makeev, “presented the [X-ray] structural analysis and showed that from one scale, after melting it in a vacuum, all of a sudden gold, silver, and nickel disappeared. But there appeared alpha-titanium and molybdenum. In another scale, the metals did not appear at all. And for some reason, after the heating, there appeared beryllium sulfide.”
There were still further surprises, such as “six areas of magnetized silica rock” (silica is a non-magnetic material) found on the crash site. These results were published by A. Petukhov and T. Faminskaya, members of the Council of Scientific and Engineering Sciences’ Commission on Paranormal Events. “Vivid interest was also evoked by the mesh, a carbon-based composite of unknown origin,” wrote Petukhov and Faminskaya, “the specimen was found to include quartz filaments 17 microns thick, and golden wires inside the filament.” All this evidence led some investigators to conclude that something alien had indeed crashed at Hill 611. V. Vysotsky, Doctor of Chemistry from Vladivostok, stated: “Undoubtedly, this is a high-technology product and not a thing of natural or terrestrial origin.” Dvuzhilny proposed that it was “an automatic scout probe” of alien origin, and rejected the alternative hypothesis that it could have been a natural plasmoid.
Still another hypothesis was offered by Yuli Platov, a senior researcher with the Institute of Earth Magnetism, Ionosphere, and Radiowave Propagation of the USSR Academy of Sciences as well as a noted UFO skeptic. Platov wrote that the Dalnegorsk phenomenon, “in reality was connected with the conduct of a technical experiment.” This is a polite way of saying the Hill 611 object was probably a secret Soviet military aircraft or spacecraft; yet, if this was the case why wasn’t Hill 611 immediately cordoned-off by Soviet troops and the material hushed away by the KGB? Why were scientists and technicians from the civilian, rather than the military industrial sector, allowed to conduct their investigation more or less openly and parade their puzzling results to the local and national media? Moreover, neither Platov nor anyone else ever produced any supporting evidence to back their experimental craft hypothesis. Dvuzhilny also noted that there were no rocket launches and no civilian or military traffic over Dalnegorsk on the night of January 29, 1986.
Regardless of its ultimate origin, the crash on Hill 611 was only the beginning of an intense UFO wave around Dalnegorsk. For instance, another report by Dvuzhilny indicates that, “on February 6, 1986, eight days after the UFO crash, there appeared from the north two yellow globes at 8:30 p.m. They approached the crash spot, made four circles over it and disappeared with a flash.” By and large, however, the largest display of UFOs occurred on the night of November 28, 1987. Dvuzhilny wrote: “On Saturday November 28, 1987, 33 UFOs were flying at a low height over the Eastern coast of Primorye. Their flights took place between 9:10 pm and midnight. They were of different shape: cylinders, cigars, globes. They were flying over five regions and twelve settlements.”
UFO photographed over Dalnegorsk. Credit: ICUFON Archives/V. Dvuzhilny
Inquiries made by Dvuzhilny showed there had been no flights of civil or military aircraft at that time, and that no rockets were launched from Soviet Cosmodromes. In total, thirteen UFOs flew over Dalnegorsk itself. They were seen by over a hundred witnesses, including military personnel, militia (police), border guards, and sailors, as well as all kind of civilian workers who were questioned by the Far Eastern Commission. Still more sightings occurred in the months to come. The Commission recorded forty-five UFO sightings in 1987, fifteen in 1988, and thirty-two in 1989.Statistics for the 1990s were not included in the reports sent to the U.S. by Dr. Dvuzhilny, but what was included—all the evidence reviewed here—is quite extraordinary.
Reconstruction by the Far East Commission on Anomalous Phenomena of the UFO wave of November 28, 1987 around Dalnegorsk and other areas in Russia’s Pacific coast. Credit: ICUFON Archives/V. Dvuzhilny
THE METALLIC SPHERES – A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY
Some of the Project Moon Dust documents declassified by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) include reports of mysterious metallic spheres found scattered in many countries around the world like Bolivia, Chad, and New Zealand. Other similar cases not in the DIA documents were reported in Argentina and Mexico. Usually these cases were readily identified as some kind of space junk, but occasionally they were treated as fragments from crashed UFOs. A couple of these spheres are even on display at the “Visión OVNI” (UFO Vision) Museum in Victoria in the province of Entre Ríos, Argentina. Among the Mexican cases, one was found in Chiapas in 1996, two in Tamaulipas in 1994 and 1996, and another obtained by famous TV journalist Jaime Maussán in 2008, all of which were claimed as possibly UFO-related fragments. Yet there can be little doubt that all these “space balls” are mundane parts of the Russian or American space programs and not real UFO artifacts.
One of the space spheres on display at the UFO Vision Museum in Victoria, Argentina; photo of George Adamski in the background. Credit: Open Minds Production
Here is a representative Moon Dust memo from the Republic of Chad in Africa, dated October 10, 1970:
This report forwards photographs of object believed to come under Project ‘MOON DUST’. The object was seen falling in an area 30 kms N.E. of LAI (0924N-1618E) on 1 August 1970. It produced three loud explosions on landing and was said to have burned for five days. The sphere weighs 30 pounds and has a circumference of four feet. A second object was found in the same general area. It however, resembles au automobile shaft. Photographs of this object are forwarded.
A longer Moon Dust document, dated August 17, 1979, concerns “an unidentified object having been found on a farm near Santa Cruz” in Bolivia, described as “about three times the size of a basketball.” The document quoted the director of the Air Force Academy, Col. Ariel Coca, as stating, “The sphere is made of special light ally but very resistant, possibly a fuel tank or a part of a satellite! The object does not have any signs or marks that could identify its origin nor the country to which it belongs.”
Two space spheres on display in the patio of the Firmat Museum in Santa Fe, Argentina. Credit: Open Minds Production
The argument in favor of the extraterrestrial origin of these spheres made by some ufologists in Mexico and Argentina is that they are extremely hard, almost impossible to burn or cut. But this is what you would expect of a fuel tank for a spacecraft, designed to be ejected for earth reentry once the fuel is used; it has to be made of metals able to withstand the space launch or the satellite or spacecraft could be in danger. Mexican engineer Luis Ruiz Noguez, a well-known UFO skeptic, explained that the alloy, which is composed of titanium, vanadium, and aluminum, shown in the 1994 and 1996 Mexican spheres “is chiefly utilized in the manufacture of fuel tanks for artificial satellites due to their high resistance to corrosion and temperature.” While the spheres at Argentina’s Visión OVNI Museum are exhibited as true UFO artifacts, another local museum in Paraná has a couple of similar spheres that the Russian space program has acknowledged as part of a Russian space probe.
A space sphere that fell in Mexico in 2008, now in the possession of Jaime Maussán. Notice the extensive damage inflicted due to reentry. Credit: Open Minds Production
These spheres provide a useful cautionary tale in learning how to distinguish prosaic man-made space objects from true unknown devices. There is a good possibility that many so-called UFO crashes have a terrestrial origin, but others are still enigmatic and so far unexplained.
A version of this article originally appeared in Issue #8 (June/July 2011) of Open Minds UFO Magazine. Back issues can be found here.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:ALIEN LIFE, UFO- CRASHES, ABDUCTIONS, MEN IN BLACK, ed ( FR. , NL; E )
Congress Requires Pentagon to Address UFO Disinformation
Congress Requires Pentagon to Address UFO Disinformation
US intelligence has admitted to participating in UFO disinformation that has helped create conspiracy theories, and congress has mandated they address it in a report.
In 1988, a recently retired U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI) Agent claimed on live television that the government was working with aliens at a secret base in the Nevada desert called Area 51 and that the “extraterrestrials have complete control of this base.” In the program, the producers blacked out the OSI agent’s face, and he went by the codename “Falcon.” The agent’s actual name is Richard Doty. It’s listed on theIMDBpage for the show. Doty hasadmitted that during his career as an OSI agent, beginning in 1980, he had been sharing disinformation about aliens and UFOs with the UFO community. Within weeks of the airing of the live UFO program, a man in Nevada named Bob Lazar approached reporters in Las Vegasclaiminghe had worked on alien spacecraft at Area 51. Despite lacking evidence, Lazar’s claims made headlines, and Area 51, then one of our most secret military bases, quickly became the most famous.
Stories like this leave me wondering how much of the UFO mythos is disinformation created by the U.S. government and why. It sounds like another UFO conspiracy theory, but Congress is interested in this question also. They require that the Pentagon’s current UAP investigation program, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), produce a report that includes “the key historical record of the involvement of the intelligence community with unidentified anomalous phenomena, including…any efforts to obfuscate, manipulate public opinion, hide, or otherwise provide incorrect unclassified or classified information about unidentified anomalous phenomena or related activities.”
Is there any reason to believe the U.S. government has deceived the public about UFOs? Mr. Doty’s story is not well known, but the CIA has admitted to deceiving the public about UFOs in a study published by the CIA journal Studies in Intelligence titled “A Die-hard Issue: CIA’s Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947–1990.”
According to the study, much like today, credible UFO sightings in the late 1940s and early 1950s brought media attention to the topic. This pressured the U.S. Air Forces into creating UFO investigation programs and the CIA to discreetly monitor the situation. The CIA didn’t want attention to the fact that it was monitoring UFO reports and interfacing with the U.S. Air Force on the matter, so both organizations chose to lie about it.
The report states, “This concealment of CIA interest contributed greatly to later charges of a CIA conspiracy and cover-up.”
The problem worsened in the late 50s when testing of U-2 spy planes began. The aircraft flew much higher than any others at the time, and the prototypes were highly reflective, causing a spike in reports to the USAF UFO research program at the time, Project Blue Book. The CIA later estimated half of the UFO reports during this time were due to U-2 aircraft. The report claims, “This led the Air Force to make misleading and deceptive statements to the public in order to allay public fears and to protect an extraordinarily sensitive national security project.”
The report also covers the CIA’s involvement with a University of Colorado review of UFO information in the late 60s, which led to the USAF closing Project Blue Book and exiting public UFO research completely. Both agencies decided to keep the CIA’s involvement in the report hidden.
Even Roswell was a cover-up, albeit not of the extraterrestrial kind. Unfortunately, the first volume of the AARO report whitewashes this event. According to the AARO report, in the 1990s, “USAF’s research did not locate or develop any information that indicated the ‘Roswell Incident’ was a UFO event, nor was there any ‘cover-up’ by the USG.”
It goes on to explain how the USAF found that the debris collected in the desert in 1947 was part of a classified project to listen for Russian nuclear testing called Project Mogul. It does not include the fact that the USAF’s research also found that the person in charge of researching the material, General Roger Ramey, had taken it upon himself to hide that the debris was part of a classified project. Instead, he told the press they had found an ordinary weather balloon and switched out the actual debris before taking press photos.
According to the 1995 USAF Roswell report, “the Air Force did not find documented evidence that Gen. Ramey was directed to espouse a weather balloon in his press conference, he may have done so because he was either aware of Project MOGUL and was trying to deflect interest from it, or he really perceived the material to be a weather balloon based on the identification from his weather officer, Irving Newton.”
Ramey’s Chief of Staff, Colonel Thomas DuBose, who can be seen in one of the photos, claimed in an affidavit, “the material shown in the photographs taken in Gen. Ramey’s office was a weather balloon. The weather balloon explanation for the material was a cover story to divert the attention of the press.”
Photo: Ramey, left, holding letter, and DuBose looking over wind-forecasting device at Fort Worth Army Airfield brought from Roswell, New Mexico. Credit: University of Arlington
DuBose does not claim to have seen or known anything about the material that the USAF found. Still, Ramey’s switching out of the material and DuBose’s statement help fuel Roswell’s conspiracy theories to this day.
This brings us back to Doty, who is the first source of the claim that the USAF took alien bodies to Area 51. He did so in a document claiming a cabal of influential people inside and outside of the government controls UFOs and alien secrets. If this sounds like the X-Files, it’s because the show was allegedly based on Doty’s stories.
In late 1980, Doty worked at Kirtland Air Force base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Only months after beginning his position as an OSI agent, a local technical equipment vendor and paranormal enthusiast, Paul Bennewitz, claimed to be getting images and signals from UFOs over the base. According to documents I and others have received via FOIA, Doty and another agent looked at what Bennewitz had found but didn’t see anything worth researching.
Doty claims that someone in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) approached him soon after meeting with Bennewitz. Doty refers to the DIA agent with the codename “Falcon”—the same name he later used on the TV show mentioned earlier. According to Doty, Falcon wanted Doty to feed disinformation to Bennewitz and make Bennewitz believe what he saw was aliens. Falcon said Bennewitz was capturing signals and videos of top-secret activity at the base, and the disinformation was intended to throw off Bennewitz and any Russian spies that might be monitoring him.
There is no evidence that Falcon exists or that Doty was ordered to conduct his disinformation program against Bennewitz, but it was effective and drove Bennewitz into a dangerous mental state. Even worse, the disinformation Doty spread and its amplification by the X-Files has created mythos that may even fool government insiders.
The FBI investigated some of Doty’s documents and asked the U.S. Air Force what they knew. The documents were returned with the word “BOGUS” written on them in thick black marker. But the question isn’t whether they are bogus. The question is why they came from an active OSI agent—a question still unanswered.
In an op-ed for Scientific American earlier this year, former AARO Chief Sean Kirkpatrick wrote: “…our efforts were ultimately overwhelmed by sensational but unsupported claims that ignored contradictory evidence yet captured the attention of policy makers and the public, driving legislative battles and dominating the public narrative.”
I agree with Kirkpatrick regarding the negative effect “sensational but unsupported claims” are having on moving UAP research forward. However, the government has to be open and cooperative as well and needs to investigate and take responsibility for its role in UAP disinformation.
A version of this article was originally posted on Den of Geek.
There has been much confusion about the alleged secret Pentagon UFO program the New York Timesexposed in 2017, and the problems stem from factual errors and omissions in the article.
According to the contract solicitation, the Pentagon created the Advanced Aerospace Weapon Systems Applications Program (AAWSAP) under the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to research “advanced aerospace weapon system applications” to understand “the foreign threat out to the far term.”
In 2009, then-Nevada Senator Harry Reid tried to get Special Access Program (SAP) status for AAWSAP. In the request, he used the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) as a nickname. James Lacatski, the DIA program manager for AAWSAP, confirmed this in his bookSkinwalkers at the Pentagon, co-written by Las Vegas journalist George Knapp and AAWSAP lead scientist Colm Kelleher.
Regarding Reid’s SAP request, the book states: “A new unclassified nickname, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), was created for use within the unclassified letter because it was decided for security reasons not to use the AAWSAP acronym.”
The Pentagon denied the SAP request.
Despite selling the program to the Pentagon as a future aerospace tech analysis program, Reid, Lacatski, and Nevada real estate tycoon Robert Bigelow intended to conduct paranormal investigations. Lacatski outlined AAWSAP’s work in his book. It does not align with the objectives outlined in the contract, nor do his tales of the alleged paranormal adventures AAWSAP engaged in. From the Pentagon’s perspective, AAWSAP was delivering on the non-paranormal research they were tasked to do.
I received the official AAWSAP files delivered to the Department of Defense in this FOIA request. All of them are within the scope of the contract.
For those of us who followed UFOs before the 2017 New York Times article, it was shocking to see that the Pentagon awarded the AAWSAP contract to Bigelow’s fledgling company, Bigelow Aerospace. The surprise was not only due to Bigelow’s involvement with AAWSAP’s inception but also because we knew what Bigelow had been up to, and UFO research was not the whole story.
At the time, Bigelow also owned Skinwalker Ranch, where a group of scientists investigated alleged paranormal activity. In 2005, Knapp (a close associate of Bigelow’s) and Kelleher wrote a book on this investigation called Hunt for the Skinwalker. The ranch now has a new owner and is the subject of a TV show on the History Channel.
We also knew that around 2008, Bigelow had changed the name of his Skinwaler and paranormal research group from the National Institute of Discovery Sciences (NIDS) to a department in his new Bigelow Aerospace company called Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies (BAASS). At this time, I was in a leadership position with a non-profit called the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON). We had created a partnership with BAASS. They provided us with resources for our UAP investigations. I handled public relations and was the only one in a leadership position who did not sign an NDA with BAASS. I didn’t want the liability.
I don’t know who knew what at MUFON, but Knapp later reported that Bigelow created BAASS solely to win and manage the AAWSAP contract. The MUFON partnership was short-lived and ended in less than a year.
Another thing many of us UFO enthusiasts knew was that despite their claims the numerous paranormal phenomena they investigate are real, Bigelow’s researchers have never been able to prove any of it.
In December 2017, the infamous NYT article claimed that a program called AATIP, run by an agent in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security named Lue Elizondo, received $22M to investigate UFOs. This conclusion has not aged well.
We know now:
AAWSAP got the contract, AATIP was a nickname for AAWSAP
Lacatksi and one of the lead scientists for BAASS deny Elizondo was involved with AAWSAP/AATIP – the program that was budgeted the $22M
The Pentagon did not create AAWSAP to investigate UFOs – Although AAWSAP did investigate UFOs, it was one of the least fringy things they took it upon themselves to look into, which is an important context the authors of the New York Times article left out.
Elizondo has claimed he was both part of AAWSAP and that he had nothing to do with AAWSAP
In 2018, a senior manager of BAASS, potentially wanting to set the record straight, gave a strange statement to KLAS, the news outlet Knapp works for, claiming “the [UFO] phenomenon also involved a whole panoply of diverse activity that included bizarre creatures, poltergeist activity, invisible entities, orbs of light, animal and human injuries and much more.”
The NYT article seemed to confuse the Pentagon, and its initial messaging was muddled. However, after further investigation, the Pentagon acknowledges the history I just covered. Volume 1 of the historical report created by the current Pentagon UAP program, the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), states, “The primary purpose of AAWSAP/AATIP was to investigate potential next generation aerospace technologies in 12 specific areas—such as advanced lift, propulsion, the use of unconventional materials and controls, and signature reduction.”
“Although investigating UFO/UAP was not specifically outlined in the contract’s statement of work,” the report continues. “The selected private sector organization conducted UFO research with the support of the DIA program manager [Lacatski].”
The report also clarifies that the “DIA did not seek, nor specifically authorize, this work though a DIA employee set up and managed the contract with the private sector organization.”
In 2019, I asked one of the authors of the NYT article most familiar with the UFO topic, Leskie Kean, about the omission of AAWSAP. She said, “at the time, our focus was AATIP. This was the name on the documents that we had, and this is what Lue Elizondo had talked to us about in interviews with him, as did others associated with the program.”
Elizondo told me his involvement was primarily with AATIP and the UFO side of things, he did not feel at liberty to share AAWSAP information with the New York Times.
So what did Elizondo do? These details are less clear. I say this despite having interviewed him several times here on OpenMinds.tv. It appears he started a group of interested parties inside the intelligence community to look at the most interesting military UFO cases collected by AAWSAP. An effort I appreciate. Elizondo and his associates adopted the AATIP name to conduct this non-funded and apparent non-official work. Department of Defense spokesperson Susan Gough recently told News Nation, “Luis Elizondo had no assigned responsibilities for the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) while assigned to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.”
The successor to AAWSAP, the UAP Task Force (UAPTF), was set up in 2020 and included AAWSAP personnel in leadership roles. Like Bigelow’s previous efforts, members of the UAPTF continue to make extraordinary yet unsupported claims. These claims come after a 2021 UAPTF report concluding that “the limited amount of high-quality reporting on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) hampers our ability to draw firm conclusions about the nature or intent of UAP.” UAPTF was short-lived and ultimately replaced by AARO. Some former UAPTF members now appear on the The Secrets of Skinwalker Ranch TV show.
For a more comprehensive analysis of this topic, I recommend you read: “On the AAWSAP-AATIP Confusion” by V.J. Ballester-Olmos and Luis Cayetano.
UPDATE: On May 28, 2025, John Greenewald posted Department of Defense correspondence he received via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request which supports my reporting on the nature of the “AATIP” Elizondo refers to as an unofficial, unfunded effort. In an email from June 5, 2019, a press official writes:
There is confusion — probably as a result of semantics/terminology — over whether the program “ended” or was “transitioned.” By the best information we’ve received, the formal AATIP program last received funding in the FY2010 NDAA, and those funds ran out, with the completion of the final 12 of 38 technical studies, in 2012. From the overall DoD perspective, that was the end of AATIP as a program. However, I’m beginning to think what happened is that some office in either OSD and/or Navy (e.g., N2N6) continued to track/monitor UAP incidents — but not as an official program, just as a mission/function/duty of an office, with no funding line, and certainly not as “AATIP.” I think that is what Elizondo is referring to when he claims that he continued to work with/in AATIP until 2017.
Read Greenewald’s article and download the documents here:
“It was like a giant light bar,” reports a witness who recorded a video of a large luminous object floating across the night sky over Spokane Valley and submitted it via theEnigma UFO reporting app.
“This thing flew right over top of us the best way that I can describe,” the witness continued. “The lights looked like big square lights going all the way across it in a cigar shape, and if you look at all the stars behind it the constellation is Orion‘s belt And all the stars are flashing in sequence as it passes by.”
Clip from Enigma #311157 – Spokane Valley, Washington – Sept. 5, 2022
The video shows what appears to be a long luminous object very high up in the sky. The object appears to be very large. Although the video was captured in 2022, it was only recently submitted to the Enigma app.
When SpaceX deploys Starlink satellites, they are very close together at first. There have been several videos and photos of these satellite trains where they look like one long object when it is a string of many small objects.
SpaceX deployed 51 Starlink satellites on Sept 4, 2022.
When it comes to the “flashing,” this is due to scintillation, the same phenomenon that causes stars to twinkle.
In this episode we discuss the state of UAP research and the best path forward. We also cover the latest UAP headlines and look at some recent UAP videos.
Enigma #307482 2025 Jan 11 • 6:50:00 PM EST Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Link to report and UFO video: https://enigmalabs.io/sighting/307482
Orb Over Tri Cities, Washington USA On June 7, 2025, UFO UAP Sighting News.
Orb Over Tri Cities, Washington USA On June 7, 2025, UFO UAP Sighting News.
Date of sighting: June 8, 2025
Location of sighting: Tri Cities, Washington, USA
Source: Email report
Now this one is special to me, since I lived in the Tri Cities for several years and still have family there. This orb is unique in that it's producing a whitish smoke around itself to hide its sphere shape. But with the bright blue sky in the background it really stand out. This is an alien orb...also called a 'drone that can't be shot down,' by the US military. Yes it's the same type of UFO seen over aircraft military runways around the world even today. Clearly it wants to be seen and recorded, a slow reveal by aliens may be happening in the coming months.
Scott C. Waring
Eyewitness states:
Suntanning in the pool. Just staring at the open sky enjoying the weather the first time. Yesterday I was actively looking for it… again. I had been outside for a couple hours… then boom! This time much higher in the sky. Appears to be spinning because it distorts the area around it and makes it look blurry. Really hard to find it on my camera. iPhone 15, at 5:20pm.
I recorded the moon and found some unusual structures of massive proportions, UFO UAP Sighting News.
I recorded the moon and found some unusual structures of massive proportions, UFO UAP Sighting News.
Date of sighting: June 7, 2025
Location of sighting: Earths moon
Source: Me
I was using my old digital camera to record the moon and when uploading the video to the computer, I decided it was too light, so I added contrast, which brought out so much detail. Here is just a screenshot, and some of the things I found in it. My camera is an old Sony 50X zoom Cybershot from about 10 years ago, but id does the job of filling my screen with nothing but moon.
Anyone can do this, just record the moon with your camera or telescope. Then take a screenshot or photo of it and add contrast until it pops! Then fiddle with it adding sharpening and it should be perfect for your eyes to see the truth. That alien structure of massive proportions exist on our moon.
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- Gemiddelde waardering: 0/5 - (0 Stemmen) Categorie:Ruins, strange artifacts on other planets, moons, ed ( Fr, EN, NL )
The classified truth: Mars' origins traced to lost planet Maldek
The classified truth: Mars' origins traced to lost planet Maldek
Evidence points to the existence of a massive planet once located between Mars and Jupiter, known to some as Maldek. This ancient world is believed to have had a large moon, complete with oceans, an atmosphere, and possibly even life, orbiting it for millions of years.
Maldek is thought to have once been home to a highly advanced humanoid civilization before meeting a cataclysmic end, likely the result of either internal collapse, through nuclear war, technological abuse, or spiritual decline, or an external force, whether natural or engineered. Its destruction scattered debris across the solar system, forming what we now know as the asteroid belt.
As for its large moon, it was cast adrift and eventually settled into a new orbit around the Sun. Today, we know that moon as Mars.
This theory sheds light on several of Mars’ mysteries: the stark contrast between its two hemispheres, the presence of tidal bulges typically seen in moons, and the unusual nuclear isotopes in its soil, matching those produced by atomic explosions.
For decades, government scientists have suppressed this information. But the truth remains, etched into planetary scars, buried beneath ancient monuments, and encoded in the mathematical patterns of our solar system’s violent past.
Additional: According to some alternative theories, a remnant of Maldek’s civilization escaped the planet’s cataclysmic destruction, seeking refuge on Mars, a world that once pulsed with life and bore a striking resemblance to Earth. For a time, they thrived. But Mars, too, would not remain untouched. Whether through the slow unraveling of its atmosphere or the lingering shadows of interplanetary war, Mars fell into decline. And so, the survivors journeyed again, this time to Earth. Shrouded in mystery, their presence may have shaped early human consciousness, remembered through the ages as ancient gods or sky beings.
The largest map of the universe, created with data from the James Webb Space Telescope, shows almost 800,000 galaxies crammed into a tiny piece of sky and spanning almost all of time.
A tiny sliver of the new COSMOS map showing an incredibly diverse collection of galaxies, created from a recent sky survey by JWST.
(Image credit: M. Franco/C. Casey/COSMOS-Web collaboration)
Scientists have unveiled the largest map of the universe ever created. Stretching across a tiny sliver of space and almost all cosmic time, it includes almost 800,000 galaxies imaged across the universe. Some are so far away that they appear as they existed in the infant universe, about 13 billion years ago.
The map, released Thursday (June 5) by scientists at the Cosmic Evolution Survey collaboration , covers a 0.54-degree-squared arc of the sky, or about three times as much space as the moon takes up when viewed from Earth.
To collect the data for the map, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) spent 255 hours observing a region of space nicknamed theCOSMOS field. This patch of sky has very few stars, gas clouds or other features blocking our view of the deep universe, so scientists have been surveying it with telescopes across as many wavelengths of light as possible.
Six galaxies from the COSMOS-Web map, each with a different age. From upper left to lower right: present-day universe, and 3 billion, 4 billion, 8 billion, 9 billion and 10 billion years ago. (Image credit: M. Franco/C. Casey/COSMOS-Web collaboration)
JWST's observations of the COSMOS field have given us an incredibly detailed view of the universe going back as far as 13.5 billion years.
Because the universe has been expanding, visible light that left its source at the other side of the universe gets stretched out, becoming infrared light. This is why JWST was designed to be an extremely sensitive infrared telescope: to detect these faint, stretched-out signals from the beginning of time that we couldn't see with other telescopes. It's already reshaping our understanding of how the universe formed.
A small portion of the new COSMOS-Web map showing many thousands of galaxies from across the universe. (Image credit: M. Franco/C. Casey/COSMOS-Web collaboration)
"Since the telescope turned on we've been wondering 'Are these JWST datasets breaking the cosmological model?"Caitlin Casey, a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and co-lead for the COSMOS project, said in astatement. "The big surprise is that with JWST, we see roughly 10 times more galaxies than expected at these incredible distances. We're also seeing supermassive black holes that are not even visible with Hubble."
The raw data from the COSMOS field observations was made publicly available just after it was collected by JWST, but it wasn't easily accessible. Raw data from telescopes like JWST needs to be processed by people with the right technical knowledge and access to powerful computers.
The COSMOS collaboration spent two years creating the map from JWST's raw data to make it more accessible for amateur astronomers, undergraduate researchers and the general public to peer into the heart of the universe. You can see it for yourself using COSMOS'interactive map viewer.
The private Japanese spacecraft "Resilience" has seemingly been destroyed in a "hard landing" on the moon on Thursday. The lander was carrying what would have been the first European-built rover to explore the moon.
The Tenacious rover is carrying a tiny model of a suburban house, known as "The Moonhouse," which was supposed to be deployed on the lunar surface. (This photo was taken before the rover was launched into space.)
(Image credit: The Moonhouse)
Editor's note: This story was updated at 12:00 p.m. on Friday (June 6) with new information from ispace.
A private Japanese moon lander — which was carrying Europe's first lunar rover — has likely been destroyed in a "hard landing" after ground control suddenly lost contact with the spacecraft on Thursday (June 5).
Mission control lost contact with the lander, known as "Resilience," at 3:17 p.m ET, just as it was attempting a lunar touchdown, and was unable to restore it as of Friday morning.
"As of 8:00 a.m. on June 6, 2025, mission controllers have determined that it is unlikely that communication with the lander will be restored," Japanese company ispace wrote in a statement posted to X. "It has been decided to conclude the mission."
It is highly unlikely that the European rover, or any of the spacecraft's other payloads, can be deployed.
The rover, known as "Tenacious," is one of several payloads carried aboard Resilience, the second Hakuto-R lander made and operated by ispace. The spacecraft attempted to touch down in an unexplored region of the moon's northern hemisphere known as Mare Frigoris, or the "Sea of Cold," after spending just over a month in lunar orbit.
An artist's illustration of the Tenacious rover next to the Resilience lander on the moon. (Image credit: ESA/ispace)
Moon milestones
Resilience launched Jan. 15 on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Live Science's sister site Space.com reported at the time. The same rocket also launched Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander, which successfully landed on the moon on March 2, after taking a more direct route.
Resilience would have been just the second private lunar lander to complete a soft landing on the moon. Its main payload, the Tenacious rover, would be the first European-built vehicle to roam the moon.
Tenacious is small, measuring roughly 21 inches (54 centimeters) long and weighing just 11 pounds (5 kilograms). But its most-talked-about payload — a tiny, red house dubbed "The Moonhouse" — is even teenier, standing just 4 inches (10 cm) tall. The art piece, dubbed the "first house on the moon," was created by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg, who first envisioned the project in 1999.
"To me, the Moonhouse is both a shared achievement, something made possible by the efforts of many individuals, but also a profoundly personal thing," Genberg recently told Space.com. "It's a small house in a vast, empty place, a symbol of belonging, curiosity, and vulnerability."
The Moonhouse was created by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg and has been in the works for more than 25 years. (Image credit: The Moonhouse)
Other experiments
Tenacious planned to roam the Sea of Cold for up to two weeks. It would then likely die during the "lunar night," when its solar panels can no longer collect light, according to ESA.
During this time, the rover would have conducted various additional experiments, including using a tiny scoop to collect a small amount of lunar regolith, which could be returned to Earth on a future mission. NASA has already agreed to buy the sample for $5,000, according to Sky News.
The Resilience lander also carryied several other payloads, including the Water Electrolyzer Experiment, which aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of producing oxygen and hydrogen from "lunar water resources"; an algae-based food production module, which would have attempted to grow the photosynthetic organism as a potential future food source for lunar astronauts; and the Deep Space Radiation Probe, which would have tracked the amount of radiation the lander will experience on the moon, according to Space.com.
Japan's private space company ispace experienced another setback on Thursday 5th June when its Resilience lunar lander crashed into the surface of the Moon, marking the company's second consecutive failed landing attempt in just over two years.
The Full Moon
(Credit : Gregory H. Revera)
The uncrewed spacecraft was attempting to touch down in Mare Frigoris, or the "Sea of Cold," a vast basaltic plain in the Moon's northern region around 3:17 p.m. ET on June 5th. More than 500 ispace employees, shareholders, and government officials watched anxiously at a public viewing event in Tokyo as flight data was suddenly lost less than two minutes before the scheduled touchdown time.
*Mare Frigoris is located just north of Mare Imbrium, and stretches east to north of Mare Serentatis.
(Credit : NASA)
According to ispace officials, the preliminary data suggests the lander's laser rangefinder experienced delays in obtaining accurate distance measurements to the lunar surface, preventing Resilience from slowing down for a safe landing. The spacecraft had successfully descended from about 100 kilometres to 20 kilometres above the surface and fired its main engine as planned, but something went wrong during the final critical phase.
“Based on these circumstances, it is currently assumed that the lander likely performed a hard landing on the lunar surface.” - ispace spokesperson This failure is somewhat similar to ispace's first attempt in April 2023, when their Hakuto-R lander also crashed during its final descent. However, company executives stressed that while both missions failed due to altitude measurement issues, the specific technical problems appear to be different.
Resilience had launched in January aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket alongside Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander, which took a faster trajectory to the Moon and successfully landed in March this year. The Japanese spacecraft chose a slower, more fuel-efficient route that took nearly five months to reach its destination.
The December 11th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket with the first Hakuto R. mission (Credit : SpaceX/ispace)
The mission carried significant scientific value, including a four-wheeled rover built by ispace's Luxembourg based subsidiary and five external payloads worth $16 million, featuring experiments from Japanese companies and a Taiwanese university. The lander was also contracted by NASA to collect lunar regolith samples during what was planned to be a 14-day surface mission.
Despite the setback, ispace isn't giving up. The company has already secured funding for a third attempt and is collaborating with US-based Draper on the Apex 1.0 lander, scheduled to target the Moon's far side as soon as 2027. The commercial space race to the Moon continues, but Thursday's crash serves as another reminder of just how challenging lunar exploration remains.
In this series we are exploring NASA's top five challenges as detailed in itsCivil Space Shortfall Ranking, which is basically NASA's Christmas wish list. These are the technologies that NASA believes we need to develop if we want to go to space…and stay there.
And we'll start with number five: high-powered robotics.
Space is hard. There's no doubt about that. It's completely unlike any environment we have ever faced on the Earth. Explorers in space, whether human or robotic, have to tackle literally out-of-this-world challenges. For example, there are extreme temperature fluctuations. One minute it could be hot enough to boil water, and the next minute cold enough to freeze nitrogen. Without thick atmospheres to balance and distribute heat, within the inner solar system you're at the mercy of the Sun: if you're in sunlight, it's generally going to be too warm, and if you're in the shade, it's hundreds of degrees colder. In the outer solar system? It's just...cold. Always, miserably cold.
And then there's the dust. On the Earth, dust is irritating – it makes us sneeze and it can jam up gears or wheels or cause your breaks to make that loud SQUEEEL sound. But in space dust is next-level. The surface of the Moon is covered in a fine powder, regolith, that is both tiny and, microscopically, fully of tiny, jagged edges. This dust can worm itself through even our best-sealed compartments, or just get carried along for the ride – where it immediately just sticks to everything.
And hey, who doesn't love a dose of deadly radiation every single second of every single day? Without a protective magnetic field and the security blanket of a nice thick atmosphere, operations on the Moon and Mars require constant exposure to cosmic rays, tiny charged particles slamming through the universe. Cosmic rays are caused by super-energetic events like supernovae and active galactic nuclei, and a typical cosmic ray particle is traveling somewhere around 99.999999% the speed of light. That's a lot of nines, and a lot of trouble. These cosmic rays can fry electronics and snip apart DNA.
And yeah, we've been sending robots into this extreme environment for decades, but if we want a more permanent presence on the Moon and Mars, we have to do better. For sure, we've had some huge successes, like the Cassini mission that spent 13 years in orbit around Saturn, or the Mars Exploration Rovers – Spirit and Opportunity – which lasted years longer than their planned 90-day missions. Those missions produced an enormous amount of science results, like the fact that we now have firm evidence that liquid water once existed on the Martian surface. We have been able to gather this evidence with the instruments on our rovers like rock abrasion tools and alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, in addition to a good old-fashioned camera.
But the presence of liquid water in the Martian past has opened up a powerful, difficult question: did Mars once harbor life? Unfortunately our current suite of robotic instruments are too limited to tell us. We need to be able to dig deeper into the soil, survey more regions, and bring more powerful instruments to answer that burning question.
This isn't just limited to Mars rovers. In general, every robot we send into space has a limited lifespan, is not meant to be repaired, and is extremely limited in what it can do. And still, those missions cost hundreds of millions, or even billions, of dollars, because we're trying to battle all those hostile environmental factors.
On the Earth, we've made great strides in making larger and more powerful robots. We have heavy-duty robots that assemble cars, and we have versatile ones that can walk like humans.
To make more impressive robots, designers have focused on increasing the power density: the amount of energy that robots can store and send through their various parts and systems. These systems include sensing, actuation (moving various bits and parts around), and aviation (like flight control). The more power you have available to all these systems, the more you can do. But if we rank power density on a scale, like a wind-up toy being a 1 and a Kaiju-killing Jaeger a 10, our robotic space probes are like a…3. Maybe 4 if we're being generous.
It's not just about having a big battery pack or solar cell. We need the ability to get this power to a robot's subsystems. We need more powerful electric motors, gearing, and drive train components. We need more capable sensors, with more dynamic range, more perception, more force. We need long-lived power distribution systems; you know, like cables and wires. We need more powerful computers to drive this all.
And, if this weren't enough, we need future robots to be modular, so that we can easily swap out components to allow the robot to fulfill a new mission objective, and we need our robots to be repairable and maintainable, because we simply can't build up a healthy lunar or Martian infrastructure with single-shot craft.
In fact, we probably need space-based robots that are even more capable and more power-dense than their current terrestrial cousins. Meaning that our goal isn't just to make current top-of-the-line Earth robots capable of facing the dangers and challenges of space environments. No, we need EVEN BETTER.
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Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 74 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.